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The Importance of CERIF to UK HEIs

UKOLN is hosting a series of meetings based on CERIF, the Common European Research Information Format, in co-operation with euroCRIS and JISC. They will take place in Bath over 9 - 10 February 2012.

CERIF is a standard for managing and exchanging research information. It provides a data model which allows collection of information about researchers, organisations, projects, funding and research outputs. It can be employed to construct relationships between, for example, research inputs and outputs, and supports the management of vocabularies. Internally, it offers a range of efficiency benefits for institutions, including avoidance of duplicating input effort across departments and therefore greater data consistency, leading in turn to better ongoing reporting and analysis opportunities. Externally, there are significant benefits to be gained from exchanging standardised research data with other institutions (e.g., when research staff move to another institution) and with other organisations such as the Research Councils (e.g., Research Outputs System) and funding councils (e.g., REF reporting). The EXRI-UK report commissioned by JISC recommended that CERIF should be the basis for the exchange of research information in the UK. UKOLN has produced a document entitled Introduction to CERIF (PDF format).

euroCRIS is the official custodian of CERIF. The standard is developed by the euroCRIS CERIF Task Group.

CERIF is now being widely used in Higher Education institutions across the United Kingdom as a result of much recent procurement of CERIF-based CRIS (Current Research Information Systems), particularly during 2010 and 2011. However staff in many institutions have expressed the desire to strengthen their understanding of CERIF in order to exploit better the opportunities offered by this powerful (and complex) standard. The meetings are being supported by the JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Programme which is working to increase engagement with CERIF and support the emerging community of practice in the UK. Several current JISC projects will be participating in the meetings, including CERIF in Action and IRIOS-2.

An introductory CERIF tutorial will be held on the morning of 9 February 2012 in Bath. In the afternoon there will be a ‘data surgery’ session which will examine the use of CERIF in real-life scenarios. The aim is both to support new adopters of CERIF and to consolidate existing expertise. Therefore, depending on participants’requirements, the afternoon session may be divided into two groups: one for those delegates who are new or relatively new to CERIF, and another for more advanced users. Participants are being asked to bring CERIF queries and data modelling/mapping issues for discussion with CERIF experts.

On 10 February 2012, five euroCRIS task groups will meet in parallel sessions: CERIF, CRIS-IR, Architecture, Best Practice and Linked Open Data. Contact information for registration is in the euroCRIS December Newsflash. This is the first time that the task groups have been co-located. The agendas are available - note that CERIF expertise is not required to participate. Task group leaders are keen to gather UK RIM experience.

All the meetings on both days are open, and all those involved in research information management (e.g., CRIS managers and IT staff, metadata/repository managers, research office staff, etc.) are strongly encouraged to participate.

The closing date for registration is Friday 3 February 2012.

Call for Proposals for IWMW 2012

UKOLN’s annual Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 2012) will be held at the University of Edinburgh on 18-20 June 2012.

This event, which is designed for members of institutional Web management teams, was first launched in 1997 and has been organised on an annual basis ever since. In 1997 the event was held over 2 days but, in answering the need to be able to cover a broad range of topics, was held over 3 days for every year until last year when, in response to concerns that funding difficulties might make it hard for people to attend, it reverted to 2 days. However since large numbers booked for the event and, in the concluding session at last year’s event, participants made it clear that a return to a longer format would be welcomed, we are pleased to say that IWMW 2012 will run over a 3-day period.

Over the past 15 years it has been held at a wide variety of locations across the United Kingdom, thus helping to ensure ease of participation from higher education institutions throughout the country. It has positioned itself as the ‘must-attend’ event for those with responsibilities for managing and developing institutional Web services.

Key emerging issues and opportunities are typically highlighted in the plenary talks, which try to reflect the current situation for Web managers in any given year. Hence in 2011 topics that came to the fore included: the value of the Web; using activity data to support your users; online privacy; and embedding Web 2.0 approaches within the institution. However the main opportunity for learning takes place in the parallel workshop sessions, which, again, reflect the suggestions that are made by delegates and followers of IWMW. Thus in 2011 considerable discussion covered topics such as: accessibility, inclusiveness and the Mobile Web facilitated; enhancing your institutional Web site with interactive mapping; top ten legal issues to be thinking about now; and how to use social media conversations and activities to measure and demonstrate impact and improve engagement. The large number of parallel sessions allows delegates to address the wide diversity of interests of those working in institutional Web teams, and the time provided in these sessions – 90 minutes – enables issues to be examined in depth while providing an opportunity for participants to engage actively in the discussions.

This year’s theme is Embedding Innovation. In accordance with this theme, the event will explore ways in which innovative technologies and ways of working can be embedded in order to respond to the challenges provided by rapid technological developments, changing user expectation and, of course, reduced levels of funding.

The call for submissions is now available. We invite submissions for plenary talks and parallel workshop sessions, as well as suggestions for other ways of engaging with the event participants.

In addition to the online submission form, we have also set up an IdeaScale site that can be used to submit ideas for content areas you would like to see covered at the event, suggestions for additional ways in which topics can be addressed, and proposals for social activities during our time at Edinburgh.

IWMW 2012 will be the event’s third visit to Scotland, after IWMW 2002 at the University of Strathclyde and IWMW 2008 at the University of Aberdeen. We are looking forward to visiting Scotland’s capital city and the range of topics to be addressed at the event.

Reminder: earlier news features are available from the News Feature Archive

UKOLN Blogs

Some members of staff at UKOLN make use of blogs to support their dissemination and user engagement activities, either as part of UKOLN's core activities or to support project work.