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Jean-François Desnos, Geneviève Gras, Béatrice Meier, Laurent Pilet

Université Joseph Fourier, Université de Strasbourg, Clermont Université

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

The aims of GRAAL

GRAAL is an application system designed to manage the french universities research labs

A reference for the administration of research

A tool for the laboratories (means, activities)

A communication vector with the government and national

bodies

A datamart providing indicators to the president2

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

The project

The GRAAL project is a cooperation which started in 2004 between the Universities of

Grenoble,

Clermont-Ferrand,

Strasbourg,

Lille USTL,

Nancy Henri Poincaré,

Paris Descartes.

It’s presently distributed by AMUE and used by 44 universities in France.

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

The project organization

Steering Committee: in charge of the strategy ; the

presidents and directors of national bodies

Project committee: executes the strategic plan, allows the

means, follows the planning of the project

Functional and operational teams: design and run the

application.

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Functionalities of the application

Describes the structure of research : labs, clusters, teams,…

Information on people and their scientific activities, including

international

Follow-up of the financial means

One database for one or several universities

The following example shows the complexity of the structures

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Structure of research (example)

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UniversitéJoseph Fourier(university)

INP Grenoble

(university)

CNRS

(national research body)

INRIA

(national research body)

Federation IMAG

IT DepartmentPhysics & Maths

Dept

Laboratory GRAVIR

GRAphics, VIsion and Robotics

7 others laboratoires

TeamVirtual Reality

Team Motion and Animation

TeamComputer

Vision

IT doctoral school

Engineering doctoral school

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Integration in the university IS

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GRAAL

User

CAS LDAP directory

Portal of University(E-sup portail)

Web services

UniversityData

warehouse

UniversityData

warehouse

Connection

StudentsStudents

Human Resources

Human Resources

Authentification

Reference Data Bases

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy 8

One database for several universities

Web services

Datawarehouse

DatawarehouseStudentsStudents Human

ResourcesHuman

ResourcesCAS ldap

directoryldap

directory

GRAAL

Datawarehouse

Datawarehouse

StudentsStudents

HumanResources

HumanResources

Datawarehouse

Datawarehouse

StudentsStudents

HumanResources

HumanResources

University A

University B

University …

ENT(E-sup)

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Indicators

General information : type of research unit, associate universities, scientific labels, address, …

Personal : Researchers, Professors, Visiting scholars, PhD students, PostDoc, staff

Finance : Needs, Means / team

Scientific production : articles, events, contracts, patents, associated private companies

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Exchanges

with the directory of research on institutional website or laboratory’s website (by Web services)

With the ministry : XML files tranfers for SIREDO statistics

With national open archiv systems HAL (by Web services)

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Technology

Full web: Java Development : WebObjects Framework , Eclipse IDE (WOLips

plugins) Deployment : WebObjects / Tomcat

Oracle 9i et 10g databases

Integrated in the university IS In the digital work environment (fr. ENT) CAS, LDAP directory authentication Synchronous access to reference databases : Student system,

HR

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March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Exchanges between GRAAL and open archive system HAL

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GRAAL HAL

Publicationsby laboratory

Publicationsby laboratory

and authorwrite write

submit

harvesting

validation

read read

March 19th 2010 Bologna, Italy

Perspectives for new versions

▶ Structures: adapt to new research structures In France, a number of universities are merging in PRES (“Pôle

de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur”)

“Teams”, subdivisions of a laboratory, are getting attributes of a laboratory.

▶ Exchanges With open archives projects (by Web services)

With a national research skills database (by XML files transfers)

▶ Upgrade of the reporting capacities (with Business Objects)

▶ Technology: rewrite the software? Cooperate with CNRS? Access other Databases? (than Oracle)

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