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Modelling national research assessments in CERIF . Stephen Grace & Richard Gartner Centre for e-Research. Periodic research assessments. Different national and local systems for different purposes Allocate resources Improve research performance Assess value-for-money or cost-benefit
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Modelling national research assessments in CERIF Stephen Grace & Richard Gartner Centre for e-Research
Periodic research assessments • Different national and local systems for different purposes • Allocate resources • Improve research performance • Assess value-for-money or cost-benefit • Increase engagement with industry, community, international partnerships • etc.
Research assessment in Britain • Research Assessment Exercise (RAE): 6 cycles between 1986 and 2008 • Expert review by disciplinary panels • Used in allocation of funding • “it has stimulated universities into managing their research and has ensured that funds have been targeted at areas of research excellence”
The British system is changing • Research Excellence Framework aims to be simpler to administer • Introduces Impact element (25% of marks) to cover benefits to economy, society, culture, public policy and services, health, environment, international development and the quality of life • Still working out what will be asked, and the form of submissions in the area of Impact
CERIF4REF schema – 1 • Analyse the XML schema devised for RAE • Express each element in CERIF under the five schema subdivisions • Research groups, Research staff and students, Research outputs, Funding, Research environment and esteem
CERIF4REF schema – 2 • Most elements mapped to an entity in CERIF • Only four items did not have a home (and two of these have been adopted as new CERIF entities) • Almost half are LINK files e.g. cfPer-ResPubl-LINK • Identifiers needed in LINKs often auto-generated • XSLT stylesheets create XML files for RAE (1) and CERIF (19)
cfOrgUnit-CORE cfPers-CORE cfFundProg-2ND cfPersName-ADD cfOrgUnitId_OrgUnit-LINK cfPersName-OrgUnit-LINK cfOrgUnit_ResPubl-LINK cfPers_ResPubl-LINK cfResPubl_Class-LINK cfOrgUnit_FundProg-LINK cfResPublBiblNote-LANG cfResPublAbstr-LANG cfClassTerm-LANG cfOrgUnitResAct-LANG cfOrgUnitName-LANG cfPers_Pers-LINK cfPers_ExpSkills-LINK cfExpSkillsDescr-LANG cfResPubl-RES CERIF4REF schema – 3:Tables generated in CERIF
Using institutional repositories • Institutional repositories are much more prevalent and embedded in universities than in lead up to RAE 2008 • Natural home for research output information • Many universities already committed to using IRs to hold publications data
Repositories plus research DB • Inhouse research databases built for RAE 2008, or adapted for it • Rationale and purpose varies: • Financial record of grants • Managerial tool for research management • Few using CERIF – so far
Repositories and CRIS together • Several buying commercial CRIS products for REF and/or institutional needs • Some adapting inhouse DB to CERIF data model • Linking CRIS and IRs since they have different use cases and users
Challenges for repositories • Authority control of persons as authors, to link with cfPerson data in CRIS • Identification of projects and grants that funded publications • Does the CRIS rely on IR for publication-related data, does the IR inherit wider contextual information from CRIS?
Repositories in absence of CRIS • Smaller or less research-intensive universities will not have CRIS/research DB • Enhanced or expanded repositories offer a way to hold and disseminate wider REF data than just publications • CERIF generation offers upgrade path
Developing CRIS/IR relations • Repositories as showcase of research can link to wider context – funding source, project, staff expertise etc. • Data interoperability can reduce the need for recreating information across systems • Data exchange within/between institutions
Applicability beyond UK • CERIF4REF as a model for expressing other national schemas in CERIF • ability to compare data across national boundaries for benchmarking, aggregating, challenge of national systems
Thank you • Stephen Grace, Richard Gartner • Centre for e-Research • King’s College London • http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/cerch/ • stephen.grace@kcl.ac.uk • richard.gartner@kcl.ac.uk