DANS is an institute of KNAW and NWO

Data Archiving and Networked ServicesData Archiving and Networked Services

Genericity versus expressivity – reflections about the semantics

of interoperable research information systems

Andrea Scharnhorst, Frank van der Most, Christophe Gueret, Tamy Chambers (IU, Bloomington), Linda Reijnhoudt

Presentation at the ACUMEN workshop, March 8, 2013,

Copenhagen

Andrea Scharnhorst – “science located”

•Head of eResearch at DANS and scientific coordinator of the Computational Humanities programme at the eHumanities group of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) – DANS=Data Archiving and Networked Services Institute (DANS)

ElectronicArchivingSYstem and NARCIS – Core services (‘products’) of DANS

www.easy.dans.knaw.nl

www.narcis.nl

DANS as non-proprietary information provider DANS as non-proprietary information provider contributes to transparence and accessibilitycontributes to transparence and accessibility

public funded researchpublic funded research

•How this research started?

•Bibliometrics, research information systems and Linked Open Data •The need for core vocabulary

•Our proposal

•Outlook

Overview

What is a “bijzondere hoogleraar”?

Overview

•How this research started?

•Bibliometrics, research information systems and Linked Open Data

•The need for core vocabulary

•Our proposal

•Outlook

Quantitative studies of science- scientometrics, bibliometrics, informetrics

Processes of knowledge creationInput Output

Number of scientistsNumber of PhD studentsR&D expenditureInstruments…..EducationBooksDataInformation resources

Number of publications/citationsNumber of PhD studentsNumber of patents…..BooksJournalsData

LibrariesArchivesLibrariesArchivesInformation

provisionInformationstorage

Persons – Organizations - Projects

What is a Research Information System?

Ref: KG Jeffery 2008 History of CRIS http://www.eurocris.org/Uploads/Web%20pages/historyCRIS/3HistoryofCRIS.ppt See also: Nick Sheppard. "Learning How to Play Nicely: Repositories and CRIS". July 2010, Ariadne Issue 64 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/wrn-repos-2010-05-rpt/

What do we want ?

• The dream: single, user-curated, consistent and up to date source that knows everything about someone

• Many aiming at being the one

The Dutch situation – many playersMetis is very detailed, fed by admin (universities, KNAW)but has a limited on-line interface.

CWTS is the ‘Scientific Observatory’ in NL forResearch Evaluation; but the databases are not public.

NARCIS is the main national portal for those looking for information about researchers and their work.

Courtesy of Nick Veenstra TU/e See: http://ehumanities.nl/vivo-symposium-january-18-2013/

VIVO

http://nrn.cns.iu.edu/ Katy Borner, Mike Conlon, Jon Corson-Rikert, Ying Ding (eds). 2012. VIVO: A Semantic Approach to Scholarly Networking and Discovery, Morgan & Claypool Publishers.

•How this research started?

•Bibliometrics, research information systems and Linked Open Data

•The need for core vocabulary

•Our proposal

•Outlook

Overview

Different concepts – different data representations

Data/Software …

Different concepts – different data representations

Result: Data does not travel well...

• Publications from Frank van Harmelen

• Decreasing number from system to system

148 38 13

Web of Science has 43 publications

and Google 283 !

Why is information lost ?

• Incentiveso Keeping one data source up to date is costlyo Keeping several is even more so!

• Standards o Information that can not be expressed is lost

• Confusiono Re-invent the well & (partially) duplicate

information

•How this research started?

•Bibliometrics, research information systems and Linked Open Data

•The need for core vocabulary

•Our proposal

•Outlook

Overview

Conceptual model of the core ontology

Core vocabulary as ‘middle-ware’

NL

US

The core vocabulary proposal crosses the usual multi-purposeontologies at different scales of scope. It has one purpose (the presentation of a researchers career). It does not translate 1:1;but defines shells of meaning (facets).Up-scaled (higher scope) it losses expressivity; down-scaled it gains expressivity in turn for lesser interoperability of the fine-grained information.

IndividualIndividual

InstitutionalInstitutional

NationalNational

International

Scope

Expressivity

Position

Hoogleraar

AcademischHoogleraar

Overview

•How this research started?

•Bibliometrics, research information systems and Linked Open Data

•The need for core vocabulary

•Our proposal

•Outlook

Just another ontology?

There is no escape of machine-readable information exchange and processing.

There is a limit at user-provided content.

There are institutional and national interests.

There is a tension of locally cared information and the globalization of science.

Might not be ‘our’ system, but a system will come! Discourse about this is needed!

26VISION I: All research information [change](P. Doorn)

27VISION II: A way for researcher to presented themselves (taylored) extracted from a research information ecosystem (Christophe Gueret)

Börner K, Klavans R, Patek M, Zoss AM, et al. (2012) Design and Update of a Classification System: The UCSD Map of Science. PLoS ONE 7(7): e39464. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0039464 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0039464

eResearch DANS

Thank you for your attention! For more information please contact

Andrea.scharnhorst@dans.knaw.nl

Leen BreureEnhanced publications, eHistory

Dirk RoordaQueries as annotations, CLARIN, Circulation of knowledge

Peter DoorneHistory, Clarin, Dariah, ClariahDirector of DANS

Rene van HorikSustainability and permanence, multi-media sources, APARSEN, NEDIMAH

Frank van der MostScientific careers and cultures of data sharing, ACUMEN

Albert Moroño PeñuelaSemantic web, CEDAR

Linda ReijnhoudtNARCIS, Visualizations

Katy BörnerIndiana UniversityVisiting fellow DANS-KNAW

Christophe GuéretSemantic web, complex networksCEDAR, PI: WikiReg

Ashkan AskpourHistory, information sciences, IISHCEDAR

Cristian DinuWikiReg

Marat CharlaganovWikiReg