Valerie McCutcheon

Research data meets research information management: Two case studies using (a) Pure CERIF-CRIS and (b) EPrints repository platform with CERIF extensions

This paper will describe how two research-intensive universities in the UK, St Andrews and Glasgow, have worked together over several years and projects to develop their institutional research management systems to deliver services to support the rapidly evolving needs of funders, institutional policy makers and management, and, importantly, the researchers themselves. This challenge is particularly acute at the moment with ‘Open Science’ one of the hottest topics around with organisations and funders from the G81 downwards stressing the importance of open data in driving everything from global innovation through to more accountable governance; not to mention the more direct possibility that non-compliance could result in research grant income drying up. There is a need to work with those researchers that need support to develop research data management processes and infrastructures that complement their ways of working and not just impose box-ticking exercises. We will explain the strategies, systems developed, and concerns arising to date at our two Universities to help support researchers and managers in this (r)evolution.

Managing open access: the first year of managing RCUK and Wellcome Trust OA funding at the University of Glasgow Library

Many institutions have been awarded funds by the Research Councils UK (RCUK), in the form of a block grant, to cover the costs of article processing charges (APCs) for open access (OA). This article discusses how this grant (and also the open access fund awarded by the Wellcome Trust) is being managed at the University of Glasgow. It looks at the overall policy for managing these funds at the University and at the systems and processes set in place by the University Library to deal with this new area of activity. There are significant challenges for institutions in managing individual APCs and the article discusses some of these challenges. The new Research Excellence Framework (REF) policy on open access was introduced in March 2014 and will have implications for the management of open access by institutions. Finally, the paper looks at where next for OA management at the University.

CERIF for Datasets (C4D)

The overall aim of CERIF for Datasets (C4D) is to develop a framework for incorporating metadata into CERIF (the Common European Research Information Format) such that research organisations and researchers can better discover and make use of existing and future research datasets, wherever they may be held. CERIF provides a standardised way of managing and exchanging research information and has been widely used for recording and exchanging information about research projects and publications. C4D looks at the suitability of CERIF for recording datasets, suggests ways that the model could be improved and implements pilot functionality based on the findings of C4D at the three partner Universities in the UK.

CASRAI-UK: Using the CASRAI approach to develop standards for communicating and sharing research information in the UK

This paper explains how the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) might be used to share research information in an open and sustainably governed approach, led by research organisations. CASRAI is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to reducing administrative burden and improving outcomes and impact reporting through good stewardship of information requirements by research organisations (universities, colleges, teaching hospitals and other research centres). The objective is to improve the flow of information within and between research stakeholders. The approach sees the ‘user-led’ development and maintenance of standard information agreements. These agreements include (a) specifications defining what data elements (entities) are needed for various key business processes in the research lifecycle and (b) definitions for all the terms appearing in these specifications. The open and standardised definitions are curated and maintained in an open online dictionary that can then be used by system providers and others to exchange information in a standard, agreed format e.g.by using CERIF-XML as the transfer mechanism.

Let's talk – interoperability between university CRIS/IR and Researchfish: a case study from the UK

Abstract Research funders and research organisations both require feedback on the progress, productivity and quality of the research they support. This information originates with researchers, but may be captured in a variety of systems including University CRIS/IR and funder systems. In 2014 all 7 national Research Councils (collectively referred to as RCUK) implemented a harmonised approach to the collection of research output data, currently supported by Researchfish Ltd (referred to as the Researchfish® system). In 2016 this process is gathering feedback from over 60,000 researchers in all UK Universities, and for funders in the USA, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands, tracking more than £40billion of public and charity research investment and is adding to a dataset of more than 1.5 million outputs. Researchers, research managers and funders want to find ways to capture this data once and achieve wide re-use of the information. Working together University and Research Council officers, Researchfish Ltd. and Jisc have highlighted that it is important for the “interoperability” between research information systems to be improved. These organisations have started a programme of work to improve the bi-directional flow of information between University and funder systems.

Enlighten: research and APC funding workflows at the University of Glasgow

This paper provides an overview of the research funding and article processing workflows provided by the University of Glasgows open source institutional repository – Enlighten – and how these have evolved, in particular with the recent introduction of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) open access policy. Enlighten is an embedded repository which now supports a range of activities beyond its original open access (OA) remit. Compliance with research funder policies and support for article processing charges (APCs) are now key components of its expanded remit.