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RIM Institutional Project - St Andrews

Using Common European Research Information Format Extensible Markup Language (CERIF-XML) to Integrate Heterogeneous Research Information from Several Institutions into a Single Portal

 

CRISPool Project Based at the University of St Andrews

 

View the project's Final Report on issuu

 

The University of St Andrews achieved the main aim of this project which was to successfully use CERIF-XML to bring together data on people, organisations and publications from three Universities for the SUPA (Scottish Universities Physics Alliance) research pool. These data are viewable and searchable at the SUPA website.

The collaborative aspect of the project involved partner institutions, pool administrators, euroCRIS, third party developers, Atira, and related JISC-funded projects, Readiness4REF(R4R) and ERIS.

 

The approach taken meant that St Andrews was learning how to use Common European Research Information Format Extensible Markup Language (CERIF-XML) as it went along. The University therefore found the expert help and advice of euroCRIS and Atira (who are members of the euroCRIS CERIF Task Group) and the sharing of preliminary findings from the Readiness4Ref project led by Kings College, London invaluable. In addition, the enthusiastic support from the ERIS project provided a channel to other pools in Scotland; several of whom have expressed an interest in the project.

 

Once St Andrews had agreed on which data the partner institutions (the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh) could reasonably provide within the timescale, some sample CERIF-XML files were created for the other partner institutions which would allow them to generate the data needed for the portal. Each institution took a different approach to generating their XML data but all used relatively low-tech text editing and 'search and replace' tools. No additional specialist knowledge was required.

 

Whilst the main aim of the project was to test the suitability of CERIF-XML as an exchange format, it was evident that those institutions with an existing culture of integrated research information management were better able to provide the required data quickly:

 

  • there was no additional work required from St Andrews as all data were fed in from the existing Current Research Information System (CRIS)
  • Glasgow, which has had an in-house integrated research information management system for many years, was able to provide data on people and publications easily
  • Edinburgh was able to provide data on people but unfortunately was unable to provide publications data within the project timeframe

 

The CERIF data model fully supported the requirements of the project except for two relatively minor areas which have been reported to euroCRIS. For the pilot project St Andrews has been able to work around these issues by using CERIF classifications; something that R4R has also been able to do during the exercise to map Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 schema to CERIF.

 

The main technical issue found relates to the fragmentation of CERIF-XML into individual XML files. The sheer number of these files means that it is very resource-intensive to process as each item, whether a person, organisation or publication is defined by data in up to 10 related files. The issue facing the designers of CERIF is that the model itself needs to represent the real world of interrelated research information - the fully connected graph. XML, however, is a linearised tree structure and cannot represent the complexity required. However, it is also the vehicle of choice for data exchange in web services.

 

In conclusion all partners are positive about the results of the project and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance is keen to move forward from a pilot to a sustainable solution.

 

St Andrews believes that, while there are still areas to improve on, the sector as a whole can take heart from the project findings that reinforce the conclusion from the Exchanging Research Information (EXRI-UK) report that CERIF should be used as the exchange format within the UK research information sector.