Research Information Systems: The Connections Enabling Collaboration

Virtual Conference

About the Virtual Conference

Many in the community have heard about the Research Information Systems (RIS); the next phase of development for the RIS is to network researchers in the interest of building strategic research initiatives and effective collaborations. This conference will look at the vision for and the progress being made in various initiatives (VIVO, REACH NC, and others). How might research information systems become more tightly integrated with workflow applications? The data captured in an RIS system is significant and should be driving increased functionality and accruing value. The event will spotlight entities that foster -- through the development of resources or networks -- the ability of researchers to identify and connect with collaborators for their work.

Agenda

11:00 a.m. – 11:10 a.m. – Introduction
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO

11:10 - 11:45 a.m.  Making Sense of the Confusing World of Research Information Management
Confirmed Speaker:  Rebecca BryantSenior Program Officer, OCLC Research, OCLC

11:45 - 12:15 p.m.  Creating a Culture of Research Reputation through Research Information Management Systems
Confirmed Speakers: Scott WarrenAssociate Dean for Research and Scholarship, Syracuse University Libraries, and Anne RauhCollection Development and Analysis Librarian, Syracuse University Libraries,  Syracuse University

12:15 - 12:45 p.m.  Enabling and Encouraging Use of the RIS/CRIS System
Confirmed Speaker: Christine Gillis Bilton, Manager, Research Information Systems, University of Waterloo and Greg Smith, Manager, Enterprise Systems, Information Systems and Technology, University of Waterloo

12:45 - 1:45 p.m.  Lunch Break

1:45 - 2:15 p.m. VIVO: A Community-driven Research Information Management System. Challenges and Opportunities
Confirmed Speaker: Muhammad JavedPh.D., Ontology Engineer/Tech. Lead (Scholars@Cornell), Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

2:15 - 2:45 p.m. Commercial RIS Systems: Benefits, Costs, and Considerations of Use

Confirmed Speaker: Daniel CaltoDirector of Solution ServicesResearch IntelligenceElsevier

2:45 - 3:15 p.m. RIS as Part of Larger Environment of Systems
Confirmed Speakers: Andi Ogier, Director for Data Services, Virginia Tech, Virginia (Ginny) Pannabecker, Associate Director, Research Collaboration and Engagement, Virginia Tech University Libraries, and Peggy Layne, Assistant Provost for Faculty Development, Virginia Tech 

3:15 - 3:30 p.m.  Afternoon Break

3:30 - 4:00  p.m. Case Study I: GTScholar: lessons learned in RIM/CRIS implementation
Confirmed Speaker: Marlee GivensLibrarian for Modern Languages and Library Learning Consultant, Georgia Tech

4:00 - 4:30 p.m. Case Study II: From Researcher Profiling to System of Record
Confirmed Speaker: Jan FransenService Lead for Researcher and Discovery Systems, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Roundtable Discussion 
Moderated by: Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO

 

Event Sessions

Making Sense of the Confusing World of Research Information Management

Speaker

Research Information Management (RIM) is the aggregation, curation, & utilization of metadata about institutional research activities, and represents growing resource allocations by research institutions worldwide. As institutions, consortia, and nations attempt to solve different problems, their systems, workflows, infrastructure, and nomenclature are developing in different ways. In this presentation, Dr. Bryant will provide an introduction to the RIM landscape and offer a model for understanding RIM activities, developed in collaboration with OCLC Research Library Partnership member institutions (http://www.oclc.org/research/partnership.html) from three continents. She will talk about the key drivers for RIM adoption, and how these have influenced RIM adoption and scaling in EMEA, North America, and the Asia-Pacific.

Developing work at OCLC Research regarding research information management 

A recent poster about OCLC Research efforts

Creating a Culture of Research Reputation through Research Information Management Systems

Speakers

Scott Warren

Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship
Syracuse University Libraries

Anne Rauh

Collection Development and Analysis Librarian
Syracuse University Libraries

Research institutions have increasingly strong needs to manage the reputations of their research portfolios. From primary investigators, to awarded grants, scholarly output and related media mention, universities need to be able to retrieve and integrate information about their research endeavors in order to successfully showcase impact at an institutional level. However, all too often this information is siloed and not easily discoverable, retrievable, or reusable. Syracuse University Libraries traditionally provide research reputation services to individual researchers, but recently collaborated with the Office of Research to expand this work in a systematic, scalable manner throughout the university via a pilot implementation of a Research Information Management System (RIMS). This partnership helped the Libraries demonstrate value in a new way to different stakeholders as an important member of the university research enterprise. The presenters will give an overview of RIMS, discuss the implementation of such a system at Syracuse University, outline challenges that implementing such systems present, and articulate why libraries should be involved in their operation. The speakers will also address impacts of the use of these systems, and their complex data needs, on the broader information community.

OCLC Report Referenced by Scott Warren: Evolving Scholarly Record

Enabling and Encouraging Use of the RIS/CRIS System

Speakers

Greg Smith

Manager, Enterprise Systems, Information Systems and Technology
University of Waterloo

As the first Canadian university to purchase Elsevier’s Pure, the project team at the University of Waterloo continues our implementation, as phase one goes live in Sept.
From the onset, Waterloo’s strategic plan has driven this initiative. Our project goal: reduce the time and effort required on administrative processes and allow our researchers to focus on their actual research.

Our project has been a collective effort from our library, research, IT and data departments and throughout, we have strived to engage and listen to our six faculties.
This session will review topics that this type of enterprise system has affected, including:

  • The hard and soft costs of a collaborative, cross-departmental project
  • Significant importance of involving the library early
  • Project resources: thinking outside the SME
  • Hosting: where is my data? Cloud or local?

VIVO: A Community-driven Research Information Management System. Challenges and Opportunities

Speaker

Muhammad Javed

Ph.D., Ontology Engineer/Tech. Lead (Scholars@Cornell)
Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

VIVO is a community-driven open source software that creates a connected, integrated record of scholarly works ready for reporting, visualization and analysis. VIVO uses Linked Data model and in the core of this application is VIVO-ISF ontology – a data model used by many institutions around the world and thus makes the data interoperable.

In this presentation, we will discuss some of the history of VIVO project and question ourselves that “is VIVO a research data recording system only”? “Can VIVO be evolved in a research information management system where VIVO not only records the data but also provides aggregate views of the scholarship and scholarly work”. Can VIVO answer questions such as “who are the experts in what subject area” without having any manual input from faculty members? Can VIVO answer questions about internal and global collaborations for a specific academic unit? Can VIVO be used to collect impact evidences of a faculty member’s research for next grant application. We will discuss the opportunities and the challenges in the light of our work “Scholars@Cornell” at Cornell University Library.

Commercial RIS Systems: Benefits, Costs, and Considerations of Use

Speaker

Daniel Calto

Director of Solution Services, Research Intelligence
Elsevier

This talk will discuss the benefits and costs generated by commercial RIS systems, as well as other key considerations and best practices institutions should consider prior to any purchase. These include speed of implementation, buy vs. build considerations, total cost of ownership analysis, data quality assurance and quality control, data deduplication and disambiguation, data model robustness, vendor management, and other key factors affecting implementation success. The presenter will draw on his prior experience evaluating software vendor proposals and as a project manager implementing major OTS software systems at Columbia University and NYU School Medicine, as well as 10 years working on product development for Elsevier.

RIS as Part of Larger Environment of Systems

Speakers

Peggy Layne

Assistant Provost for Faculty Development
Virginia Tech

In 2011, Virginia Tech Libraries launched a DSpace-based institutional repository service called VTechWorks. In 2012, the Libraries began to explore integration of the repository with the university’s Electronic Faculty Activity Reporting System (EFARS), a service managed by the Provost’s office, in an effort to reduce barriers to deposit and in response to faculty feedback on ways to encourage the adoption of open access publishing practices. Presenters will briefly review the current state of implementation of Virginia Tech’s EFARS, all levels of partnership involved in implementation, the evolving roles for the library, and the technical, policy, rights, workflow, outreach, and publishing issues involved in establishing VT Libraries’ repository and public researcher profile services as integral components of the university’s networked research infrastructure.

Case Study I: GTScholar: lessons learned in RIM/CRIS implementation

Speaker

Marlee Givens

Librarian for Modern Languages and Library Learning Consultant
Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech was one of the first United States institutions to adopt a Research Information Management (RIM) system. In response to Georgia Tech's 2010 strategic plan, in 2012 a group of faculty and staff from across campus began to discuss the implementation of a faculty profile system, which ultimately led to the adoption of a RIM system called GTScholar. GTScholar would be a central repository of simple and updated faculty profiles that could be accessed widely for the benefit of the Georgia Tech community and external audiences. The project had many successes, but it met some challenges as well: chief among those were a reliance on databases created and maintained for other purposes and project scope creep in response to evolving needs and potential of the product. This case study presentation will trace the path of proposing, planning, implementing, and ultimately pausing development of GTScholar in 2016.

Case Study II: From Researcher Profiling to System of Record

Speaker

Jan Fransen

Service Lead for Researcher and Discovery Systems
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

One look at the home screen of the University of Minnesota's Experts@Minnesota tells you that this is a sprawling institution: Experts@Minnesota includes public profiles for 6,400 faculty and staff organized into almost 300 research units. At last count, it held almost 230,000 research outputs. Such a near-comprehensive data set brings benefits as well as challenges. Ms. Fransen will review those challenges, both initial and ongoing, and discuss the rationale for the 2012-15 pilot project as well as the current (often unexpected) benefits of the service. She will also discuss key partnerships and review the Experts@Minnesota roadmap.

Additional Information

  • Cancellations made by Wednesday, August 9, 2017 will receive a refund, less a $35 cancellation. After that date, there are no refunds.
  • Registrants will receive detailed instructions about accessing the virtual conference via e-mail the Friday prior to the event. (Anyone registering between Monday and the close of registration will receive the message shortly after the registration is received, within normal business hours.) Due to the widespread use of spam blockers, filters, out of office messages, etc., it is your responsibility to contact the NISO office if you do not receive login instructions before the start of the webinar.
  • If you have not received your Login Instruction e-mail by 10 a.m. (ET) on the Tuesday before the virtual conference, please contact the NISO office at nisohq@niso.org for immediate assistance.
  • Registration is per site (access for one computer) and includes access to the online recorded archive of the conference. You may have as many people as you like from the registrant's organization view the conference from that one connection. If you need additional connections, you will need to enter a separate registration for each connection needed.
  • If you are registering someone else from your organization, either use that person's e-mail address when registering or contact nisohq@niso.org to provide alternate contact information.
  • Conference presentation slides and Q&A will be posted to this event webpage following the live conference.
  • Registrants will receive an e-mail message containing access information to the archived conference recording within 48 hours after the event. This recording access is only to be used by the registrant's organization.