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CERIF UK landscape euroCRIS membership meeting Lille 2-3 November 2011 Rosemary Russell, UKOLN, University of Bath. UKOLN is supported by:. JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN. Includes provision of support for JISC Research Information Management Programme eg
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CERIF UK landscape euroCRIS membership meeting Lille 2-3 November 2011 Rosemary Russell, UKOLN, University of Bath UKOLN is supported by:
JISC Innovation Support Centreat UKOLN • Includes provision of support for JISC Research Information Management Programme eg • supporting documentation for JISC Calls for proposals • CERIF resources • project synthesis • ‘landscape’ studies
CERIF UK ‘landscape’ study • Aim is to document the extent of adoption and engagement with CERIF in UK HE institutions and related organisations • Repeat in one year to reveal how much things have moved on… • help to assess impact of JISC RIM programme • influence future programme planning
Areas of CERIF use • CRIS implementations • JISC projects • Funders… • Publishers • Focus here mainly on institutional use – ie via a commercial CRIS software platform • Existing UKOLN documents cover other areas
CERIF CRIS use in UK HE • Lots of CERIF CRIS procurement in last year - some are in early stages of implementation • Pure (Atira) - 17 • St Andrews, Aberdeen, York, Royal Holloway, Strathclyde, Hertfordshire, Lancaster, Aston, Institute of Education, London, Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Glasgow Caledonian, King’s College London, Edinburgh, University of the Highlands and Islands, Bath, Queen's University Belfast • CONVERIS (AVEDAS) - 5 • Cranfield, Hull, Stirling, MRC Oxfordshire Regional Centre, Brighton • Symplectic Elements (Symplectic) • eg Brunel, Imperial, Queen Mary, Leeds…
Progress to date • 7 interviews carried out • 5 Pure, 2 CONVERIS • plan to cover majority of institutions with CERIF CRIS • exception - some very recent procurements which haven’t yet deployed • most keen to be involved! • Focused so far mainly on institutions not involved in JISC projects – those we know less about • Interviewee – ‘CRIS project manager’ – based in: • Research Office (2) • Library/Info Services (4) • IT Department (1)
Interview questions • Asked them about eg • current state of deployment • integration with existing systems – mapping issues etc • how has CRIS been received? staff views • experience of CERIF • data model • user group activity • liaison with euroCRIS
Some observations so far… • Experience of CERIF mediated by CRIS software used • Shielded from CERIF • Most have a basic understanding – some more • Little direct engagement • Unless essential, people don’t have time to investigate CERIF • only institutions undertaking development projects get properly engaged with CERIF • People rely on CERIF expertise in user groups • CERIF viewed as an insurance • CRIS seen as middleware – intermediary between institutional systems
Lack of engagement • “CERIF does come up from time to time” • “Worried that lack of expertise in CERIF will hinder us” • “Focus very much on REF with CONVERIS so far” • “Don’t care at all about CERIF – although we specified CERIF, it’s more as a proxy for QA… A lot more complex than our needs… • “Provides an insurance that if we need to switch to another system, data can be reused. It doesn’t matter what the standard is” • “We licenced the software so we don’t have to worry about CERIF ourselves – someone else does it for us” • “Reassured by CERIF knowledge within UK user group” • “Depend on Anna…”
How does understanding of CERIF help? • “I think it helps to have a broad understanding of the CERIF model so you understand how the content types relate to each other, and to understand some of the concepts introduced by the system” • “Helps understand what’s possible and what’s not” • “Understanding how eg projects work in CERIF - stopped us going in wrong direction” • “Having a concept of CERIF helps when explaining to other people eg academics why things work in a certain way”
Integration with repository • All institutions have integrated their CRIS with the existing IR – one exception • said mapping overhead was too great • “Our repository has benefited through integration with the CRIS” • “Need to be pragmatic – focus on what we can do rather than what we did in past…”
Getting buy-in from staff… • “Politically challenging” • “A lot of top-down support in the University – would have struggled otherwise” • “Managing expectations” • “Bringing together data from individual fiefdoms is tricky” • “Buy-in varies across disciplines” • “Some academics still not updating records” • “Tends to be an initial flurry of activity, then leave it or forget” • “People won over by seeing everything can be kept in one place” • “The CRIS is becoming so important to academics that they get shirty when they think it’s not working properly – usually because they’ve forgotten how to use it!”
UKOLN RIM resources http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/rim/ Landscape study due 16 December…