CRISs, CERIF, CASRAI and Snowball Metrics

(Why) are these key to University Libraries?

Anna Clements, Assistant Director (Digital Research), University Library, University of St Andrews

Chair, UK Pure Strategy Group

Exec Strategy, euroCRIS

Chair, CASRAI Data Management Planning Working Group

Member, Snowball Steering Committee

akc@st-andrews.ac.uk

@annakclements

Henry Legg

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 2

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

RAE / REF preperation y Y

Institutional Repository y y y y y

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 3

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

RAE / REF preperation y Y Y

Institutional Repository y y y y y y

EPSRC Roadmap Y

RCUK Outcomes reporting (ROS) y

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 4

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

RAE / REF preperation y Y Y Y

Institutional Repository y y y y y y y

EPSRC Roadmap Y

RCUK Outcomes reporting (ROS) y y

RCUK Open Access policy Y

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 5

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

RAE / REF preperation y Y Y Y

Institutional Repository y y y y y y y y

EPSRC Roadmap Y

RCUK Outcomes reporting (ROS) y y

RCUK Open Access policy Y Y

Research Data Management Y

HEFCE OA policy Y

Researchfish y

Bibliometrics y

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 6

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

RAE / REF preperation y Y Y Y y

Institutional Repository y y y y y y y y y

EPSRC Roadmap Y

RCUK Outcomes reporting (ROS) y y

RCUK Open Access policy Y Y Y

Research Data Management Y Y

HEFCE OA policy Y Y

Researchfish y y

Bibliometrics y y

Alt-metrics y

Digital Science y

What has been happening in our Libraries?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 7

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

RAE / REF preperation y Y Y Y y

Institutional Repository y y y y y y y y y

EPSRC Roadmap Y

RCUK Outcomes reporting (ROS) y y

RCUK Open Access policy Y Y Y

Research Data Management Y Y

HEFCE OA policy Y Y

Researchfish y y

Bibliometrics y y

Alt-metrics y

Digital Science y

Digital Humanities y y y y

Definition of a CRIS

Current Research Information System

‘is any informational tool dedicated to provide access to and disseminate research information’

www.eurocris.org

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Cleents 8

What is a CRIS?

Activities

Publications

St Andrews

PURE CRIS Fed Out

REF, RCUK

SFC, HESA

HEI – Strategic

Planning, Benchmarking

Public, Media

Recognition / Impact

Industry / SME’s

Interface

Collaborations

Research Pools

Pulled InStaff Records

[HR]

Student Records

[Registry]

University

Structure [HR]

Projects, Grants,

KT

[Finance]

Manual

Input

WoS, arXiv,

PubMed,

Scopus…

Full Text

Repository

Open Access

Bibtex,

Refman

Award/ recognition

Dissemination// Engagement

Research data sets

(multiple locations and formats)

Impact

Indicators

Measures

Case Studies

Anna Clements 9

For the Institution

• Assessment & evaluation

• Tool to support policy development

• Compliance reporting to funders

• Manage open access process

• Research data catalogue

• Repository – publications, data

• Promotion via public portal

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For the researcher

• Single point to collect/enter research info• View onto data held centrally – grants, students• Publications and data catalogue• Mechanism for reporting outputs to funders• Way to ensure publications are REF2020 eligible• Promotion via web pages• CV generation• Find collaborators

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 11

What is a CERIF?

• Common European Research Information Format

• An international standard (meta)data model for storage and interoperability of research information

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 12

What is a CERIF?

• Broad coverage: includes all aspects of RI (projects, persons, organisations, funding, publications, datasets, patents, products, bibliometrics, impact indicators, equipment, etc…)

• Fine-grained structure and flexible architecture, allowing:

• mappings to virtually any (meta)dataformat existing in the Research Information Domain

• the expression of virtually any formalised use case

• the ingestion of an unlimited number of controlledvocabularies

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 13

Who looks after CERIF?

• eurocris.org look after CERIF

• Not-for-profit, membership organisation

• Includes institutions, funders, publishers, standards bodies, suppliers … from across the world … in fact

Anyone interested in increasing the quality andavailability of research information without foreverincreasing burden of data (re-)collection

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 14

CRIS and CERIF

• Commercial CRIS systems are CERIF-compliant: Pure, Symplectic, Converis

• Is now a dSpace-CRIS option http://hub.hku.hk

• Many UK Universities have CRIS o 24 Pure (16 with Pure Research Portals)

o 20 (?) Symplectic

o 13 (?) Converis

o ePrints + extensions (incl CERIF-compliance)

o InhouseUKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 15

CRIS, CERIF and euroCRIS

• CRIS – is the system

• CERIF – is the standard, openly available data model

• euroCRIS – is the organisation

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 16

What is CASRAI?

• Consortium Advancing Standards in Resarch AdministrativeInformation

• Not-for-profit, membership organisation

• Includes institutions, funders, publishers, standards bodies, suppliers … from across the world … in fact

Anyone interested in increasing the quality andavailability of research information without foreverincreasing burden of data (re-)collection

(sound familiar?)

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 17

What is CASRAI?

• Started in Canada & now with UK and international working groups

• Concentrates on the business definition of a process or exchange of research information

• What, why, between who and how often; NOT the ‘how’

• Is technology agnostic

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 18

CRIS, CERIF, euroCRIS & CASRAI

So we start with …

CASRAI process producing a clear business definition of information for a particular process or exchange …

… which can then be represented in CERIF (looked after by eurocris) or

another suitable data model …

…. and used by system suppliers/builders to move data in or out of a CRIS

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 19

CASRAI examples

• Jisc pilot in UK

Open Access reporting

Organisational identifiers

Data Management plans

• Get experts together – from all stakeholders

• Agree scope of use case e.g. ‘Reporting open access compliance tofunders’

• Agree clear & precise definitions for information required for thisuse case; iterations around wider review group

• Add to freely available CASRAI dictionary

• Review mechanism for updates

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 20

What are Snowball Metrics?

• A set of clearly defined metrics measuring research inputs, process and outputs allowing universities to understand their strengths and weaknesses, so that they can build and monitor effective research strategies

• Bottom-up i.e. agreed by institutions not imposed by funders or data suppliers

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 21

What are Snowball Metrics?

• 8 UK research intensive universities in steering committee

• Elsevier providing project management; no-one contributes any funding

• Similar groups in US, ANZ and elsewhere aiming to ‘internationalise’ the metrics

• Metrics or ‘recipes’ published and freely available for anyone to use

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 22

Snowball Partners

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http://www.snowballmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/snowball-recipe-book_HR.pdf

But need to benchmark more widely – nationally andinternationally : Free metrics exchange due 2015

DataInstitutionalCommercialThird party

SystemBespoke

SciVal / InCitesPure / Converis

ResearchFishSpreadsheet

etc.

Snowball Metrics

Supplier-and

system-agnostic

Exchange of equivalent metrics (not data) with other institutions when

both parties agree

Snowball, CASRAI, CRIS and CERIF

• CASRAI international Snowball working group

• Widen participation in Snowball metric definitions & publish in CASRAI dictionary

• Members include CRIS suppliers Thomson Reuters, Digital Science, as well as Elsevier

• Snowball metrics have been CERIFied

• Elsevier included Snowball metrics in Scival and Pure

• Thomson Reuters have said they will do likewise

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 27

So what does all this mean for Libraries?

Where can a CRIS help you?

How could CASRAI help solve a specific problem?

What else will Libraries be doing in the next 3, 5, 10 years?

What will they stop doing?

UKSG Glasgow 30/31 Mar 2015Anna Clements 28

CRISs, CERIF, CASRAI and Snowball Metrics

(Why) are these key to University Libraries?

Anna Clements, Assistant Director (Digital Research), University Library, University of St Andrews

Chair, UK Pure Strategy Group

Exec Strategy, euroCRIS

Chair, CASRAI Data Management Planning Working Group

Member, Snowball Steering Committee

akc@st-andrews.ac.uk

@annakclements