Presentation on the Knowledge Exchange project on metadata standards for exchange between Current Research Information Systems and Open Access Repositories. Presented at EUROCRIS, Aalborg, Denmark, 4 June 2010 by Mogens Sandfaer.

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CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Knowledge Exchange
CRIS-OAR interoperability project
publication metadata

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CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
Knowledge Exchange is an international co-operative effort
that supports the use and development of e-infrastructures
for higher education and research.
Partners are:
 Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF)
 German Research Foundation (DFG)
 Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in UK
 SURF foundation in the Netherlands

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Motivation: Enable broad collaboration in the
information management of research publications CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 Current Research Information Systems
 a label for research management systems of various
types, dealing with many aspects of research activities
 contain metadata on research publications
 Open Access Repositories
 a label for for open research output archives aiming at
preservation and dissemination of publications etc.
 contain metadata on research publications
 Theyshare the challenge of achieving full metadata
coverage for the publications within their scope

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Motivation: Enable broad collaboration in the
information management of research publications CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 If CRIS and OAR easily could exchange metadata about
publications, they could support each other
 But CRIS and OAR have grown out of different
communities and have developed rather different
approaches to publication metadata
 If a university has a CRIS and an OAR, generally a
publication must be registered twice to comply with
both systems’ requirements
 Both CRIS and OAR strive to be complete in their
coverage of publications – both would benefit from
collaboration – not to mention the authors/researchers.

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Motivation: Enable broad collaboration in the
information management of research publications CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 CRIS use a variety of formats – some use CERIF
(or variants thereof) and some use various local or
national formats
 In many disciplines, publications are of global interest
and are often results of international collaboration
 They are often of interest to more than one CRIS
 CRIS with different formats would benefit from an easy
and precise mechanism to exchange publication
metadata

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Motivation: Enable broad collaboration in the
information management of research publications CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 OAR use a variety of formats – some use Dublin Core
(or variants thereof), some use library formats such as
MARC and MODS, and some use use various local or
national formats
 In many disciplines publications are of global interest
and are often results of international collaboration
 They are often of interest to more than one OAR
 OAR with different formats would benefit from an easy
and precise mechanism to exchange publication
metadata

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Aim and purpose
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 To increase the metadata interoperability
 between CRIS and OAR systems
 and thus also
 between CRIS and CRIS with different formats
 between OAR and OAR with different formats
 by defining and proposing
1.a metadata exchange format for publications
2.a set of common vocabularies for key elements

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Project participants
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
UK - JISC DE - DFG NL - SURF DK - DEFF
Rosemary Russell, Wolfram Horstmann, Marga van Meel, Adrian Price,
UKOLN Bielefeld University KNAW Copenhagen Univ. Project
manager
Michael Day, Najko Jahn, Arnoud Jippes, Mikael Elbaek,
UKOLN Bielefeld University KNAW Technical Univ. DK Project
director
Simon Lambert, Friedrich Summann, Ed Simmons Mogens Sandfaer,
Rutherford Appleton Bielefeld University Nijmegen Univ. Technical Univ. DK
Max Stempfhuber,
Aachen University

10. + good
Building new bridges in the old world
Not designing new (and better) worlds
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
This metadata island knows
well what is doing - Good
reasons govern its choice
of format and vocabulary

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Building new bridges in the old world
Not designing new (and better) worlds
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
We (simply) build a bridge
that will enable these islands to communicate
- without changing their language and life style.
That will allow them to exchange publication metadata
without studying and understanding the particularities of the other part.
This metadata island knows
well what is doing - Good
reasons govern its choice
of format and vocabulary

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Challenges stemming from
CRIS
different missions of formats OAR
INTER
OPERA
 The different nature (and tasks) of
 CRISformats
 Repository formats
 The granularity challenge

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The different nature of CRIS
CRIS
and repository formats OAR
INTER
OPERA
Typical CRIS main entities and their relations
(many triples & many detailed fields)

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The different nature of CRIS
CRIS
and repository formats OAR
INTER
OPERA
Simple
Dublin Core
15 fields in
a single flat
structure
Aimed at the
description of
some sort of
“document”
May be
enhanced to
provide more
granularity
and specificity
But mostly isn’t

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Bridging publications metadata
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 CRIS formats are characterized by their
 broader view on research information depicting research
results as well as the actors and various environmental
factors in their own right
 (often) high level of detail and specificity in describing the
various entities (very granular and precise)
 ability to handle the dynamics of time – as everything else
but research publications changes over time as well as
their interrelations

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Bridging publications metadata
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 OAR (DC) formats are characterized by their
 Narrow view on depicting research results – generally
publications
 (mostly) low level of detail and specificity in describing the
various aspects (less granular)
 absence of need to handle the dynamics of time – as they
deal with research publications tied to a specific point in
time

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Bridging publications metadata
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 Implode the relational/network nature of the
CRIS formats to a single structure – adequate for
describing publications
 Design the field/element hierarchy so that highly
granular as well less granular metadata may be
represented – without loss of information

18. + Project approach
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
DRIVER
DRIVER
CERIF
DRIVER
METIS
Metadata DC
exchange
format and
vocabulary
DRIVER ePrints
default
DRIVER
DDF-MXD
NARCIS
MODS

19. + Project approach
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
1. Analyze metadata practices of CRIS and OAR
 Looking at formats in actual use at KE partners
 Chart entities and granularities, similarities, differences

20. + Project approach
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
2. Define entities/elements/attributes to be exchanged
 Respecting differences in granularity
 So that metadata may be exported without loss of information
 So that the format may be used by very granular
environments as well as less granular
3. Define/propose common exchange vocabulary
 For the identified key concepts/entities
4. Define/propose common exchange syntax
 Handle differences in granularity

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Some potential use cases
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 CRISOAR
 OARCRIS
 CRISCRIS
 OAROAR
 CRIS/OAROpenAIRE (EU Open Access pilot)
 PublisherCRIS/OAR
 Subject repositoryCRIS/OAR (institutional)

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Over to Mikael
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Based on ideal examples – ”use
CRIS
cases” OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Ideal example of a publication
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Basic idea evolved
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 To carrie both the highest granularity (CRIS) and the lowest
level (OAR?)

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The DC elements are used as a
baseline.
 Title  Format
 Creator  Indentifier
 Subject  Source
 Description  Language
 Publisher  Relation
 Contributer  Coverage
 Date  Rigths
 Type

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Main entities of interest
 The publication is in focus and other entities are in relation to the publication

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Person
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Organisation
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Event
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Project
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Publication
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Person in more details
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Vocabularies
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 Person
 Role
 Description: role is the person role in
relation to the publication.
Terms:
 Author  Translator
 Primary Author  Illustrator
 Corresponding Author  Inventor
 Editor  Supervisor
 Publisher

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Publication in detail – type, review
CRIS
and OAR
INTER
OPERA

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Publication types
CRIS
OAR
 Publication INTER
OPERA
 Type
 Description: the format does provide a gross list of publication
types based on an analysis of the formats analysed in the project.
A mapping between the different systems and formats in the
analysis can be found on a web page.
 Mapping between common vocabularies can be found at:
http://weekschild.uci.ru.nl/KE/?select=all
 The formats analysed: CERIF2008, MODS/DIDL, DRIVER_DC, DDF-
MXD; EPrints, METIS, PURE

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Publication types (terms)
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 Journal Letter  Conference talk  Net publication
 Journal comment  Thesis Doctoral  Patent
 Journal review article  Thesis PhD  Software
 Journal book review  Thesis Master  Data set
 Book  Working paper, preprint  Newspaper article
 Book chapter  Report  Radio/TV broadcast
 Book preface  Report chapter  Exhibition catalogue
 Conference paper  Lecture Notes  Student report
 Conference abstract  Lecture  Other
 Conference poster  Memorandum

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Vocabularies - Versions
CRIS
OAR
 Version INTER
OPERA
 Description: This element and vocabulary is expressing the version of
the document i.e. draft or published version of the document. The terms
are based on the VERSIONS toolkit excluding the term “updated”.
 Important! Different versions should be self contained and constitute
individual records. This mirrors best-practices for repositories but not
always the case for CRIS.
Terms:
 Draft i.e. working paper
 Submitted i.e. pre print
 Accepted i.e. post print
 Published i.e. publisher edition
 Updated i.e. reprint
 VERSIONS project: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/versions/

39. Let’s test it!

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The challenges for interoperability
CRIS
OAR
INTER
OPERA
 Discussion!