research outputs, events, teams and individuals to form a coherent description of a decade or more of activity. Whereas grants databases are usually run as B-B services (mediating information between funding bodies and research institutions), repositories have typically adopted a B-C role, mediating research information between an institution and the thousands of grass-roots researchers who work in it (as well as the research community outside it). Therefore it does not seem unusual for a repository to offer other researcher-serving information services. In a recent workshop run by the JISC Readiness for REF project, a straw poll of the attendees indicated that they would favour their repositories taking on information management roles more usually associated with a CRIS (specifically information about projects and funding organisations). The Hybrid Repository As well as accommodating the CERIF data model for interchange, EPrints is extending its internal data models to accommodate not just “publications” but “projects” and “organisations” as well. Such CERIFization requires a repository to have many separate datasets, all linked together via explicit relationships; projects and funding organisations that were just names typed into the paper’s metadata record are now objects in their own right linked to that metadata record. Hence, data about projects, publishers, funders etc can be managed in EPrints just like publications; they can be edited, displayed, searched, exported. Because a repository is designed for engagement with end users, the user interface and capabilities may be better (richer, easier) than those associated with an administrative database, and so it may be easier for users to keep the repository up-to-date than the administrative master. Questions What should the relationship be between a repository and a CRIS? Or the repository and the CRIS component systems? The kinds of research reporting that is being undertaken is much richer than previously: does the CRIS model mediating between independent systems still work?
research outputs, events, teams and individuals to form a coherent description of a decade or more of activity. Whereas grants databases are usually run as B-B services (mediating information between funding bodies and research institutions), repositories have typically adopted a B-C role, mediating research information between an institution and the thousands of grass-roots researchers who work in it (as well as the research community outside it). Therefore it does not seem unusual for a repository to offer other researcher-serving information services. In a recent workshop run by the JISC Readiness for REF project, a straw poll of the attendees indicated that they would favour their repositories taking on information management roles more usually associated with a CRIS (specifically information about projects and funding organisations). The Hybrid Repository As well as accommodating the CERIF data model for interchange, EPrints is extending its internal data models to accommodate not just “publications” but “projects” and “organisations” as well. Such CERIFization requires a repository to have many separate datasets, all linked together via explicit relationships; projects and funding organisations that were just names typed into the paper’s metadata record are now objects in their own right linked to that metadata record. Hence, data about projects, publishers, funders etc can be managed in EPrints just like publications; they can be edited, displayed, searched, exported. Because a repository is designed for engagement with end users, the user interface and capabilities may be better (richer, easier) than those associated with an administrative database, and so it may be easier for users to keep the repository up-to-date than the administrative master. Questions What should the relationship be between a repository and a CRIS? Or the repository and the CRIS component systems? The kinds of research reporting that is being undertaken is much richer than previously: does the CRIS model mediating between independent systems still work?
hybridCRISIR.docx