Current Research Information Systems in Greece

Dr Nikos Houssos

National Documentation Centre (EKT) /

National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF)

Dr Nikos Houssos

/ National Documentation Centre (EKT)

National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF)

Agenda

• About the National Documentation Centre • CRIS systems in Greece• Important issues for CRIS development

NDC activities and role

• Part of National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) - oldest research centre in Greece

• Research and technology content and services:– National doctoral theses archive

• 13,000+ theses on line, 3.500.000 pages in total• Both born digital and digitized material

– National archive for variety of DBs and all research journals – both in print and electronic ones.

– Union catalogues of journals that Greek Academic Libraries subscribe, municipal libraries etc.

– Digitization services for cultural and scientific content– Development of CRIS - research results dissemination

• Services for the academic/research community: – International cooperation, Enterprise Europe Network, National

Contact Point for FP7, research metrics extraction

National Documentation Centre – CRIS related activities

• Has been building CERIF-compliant CRIS since 2002• Since early 2007 runs a funded project related mainly to open access

infrastructures– Institutional repository of NHRF– 5 open access journals

• A part of the project concerns enhancements on existing CRIS• Funding for developing open access systems and CRIS is

(practically) secured for at least two more years, beginning 2009

Greek Research Groups Database

• Attempt to create a register of all greek research groups/labs in universities and research institutes

• Data collected by a survey research company• Numbers: 8500 researchers, 1400 organisations, 4000 publications• In pilot operation (greek-only http://www.ekt.gr/grcris)• Built on the CERIF database schema• Implementation technology: Java EE

Research Projects with Greek Participation

• Information about R & D projects with greek participation.• Data collected from project databases:

– CORDIS

– National bodies• Built on the CERIF database schema - individual schemas mapped to

CERIF • In operation (greek-only, http://services.ekt.gr:8080/portal/dt)• Implementation technology: Java EE

NISNEST database – researchers and organisations from Eastern Europe

• Part of the NISNEST project - aims to strengthen the cooperation between the EU Member States and the Eastern European countries in the areas of frontier and high risk research

• Mainly data from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova• Data collection methods:

– Self-submission by researchers

– Information extracted from event registration forms• Numbers: ~600 researchers and ~170 organisations• In operation (http://researchers.nisnest.gr)• CERIF-based database schema with certain additions.• Basic faceted browsing functionality• Implementation technology: Ruby on Rails

Database of researchers and organisations in humanistic studies and natural sciences

• Part of the efforts to promote open access journals • Researchers and organisations from all over the world• Data collected from various sources in the Internet• Numbers: ~1400 researchers and ~150 organisations• In operation (http://resorgs.ekt.gr)• Non-CERIF database schema, can be mapped to CERIF

XML.• Basic faceted browsing functionality in development• Implementation technology: Ruby on Rails

Mapping of Greek Women in Research

• Creation of a register of greek women researchers.• Data solicited from universities and research centres • Additional data collected through questionnaires completed

directly by researchers• Numbers: More than 3000 researchers, 80 organisations• System not public (contractual requirement)

Experiences with CERIF

• Model is quite complete – mapping from arbitrary schemas to CERIF without significant loss of information

• Needed to extend the CERIF schema in some cases

• Interoperability at the database schema level – in some case not the best choice – Example: flexibility of Ruby on Rails not utilised

• Support for other databases desirable– MySQL, PostGreSQL

Important issues for now and the future (1)

• Efficient data collection– Automated ingest/update from available sources (e.g., people,

publications, organisations, projects)

– Need to ensure availability of sources (e.g., CORDIS, national sources)

• Enhance user experience– Faceted browsing

– Advanced visualisation

– Mashups based on CRIS data

• Data quality – Data cleaning (e.g., de-duplication)

Important issues for now and the future (2)

• Interoperability among CRIS– Harvesting of CRIS data– Cross-CRIS search, browsing

• Interoperation with institutional repositories• CRIS role in the implementation of research assessment

systems• Semantic web technologies

More info

nhoussos AT ekt.gr