RIS Project Team

February 2012

New University of Bristol Research Information System

Contents

• Background to the RIS project

• Benefits

• For individual academics and researchers

• For academic managers

• General benefits for the whole University

• Timescales and priorities

• Communications

Why do we need a Research Information System at the University of Bristol?

1. Lack of integration of research information across our current University systems

2. Significant gaps have been identified in the research information currently being captured

3. IRIS the University’s publication management system was no longer fit for purpose

4. We need a system to support the development of the University’s REF submission

5. A system is required to reduce manual data entry and minimise duplication of effort

6. A system is required to support reporting on research information at all levels in the institution.

Project progression

Statement of Requirements

PROJECT TEAM

Stage 1 Business Case

EU Procurement Process

PROJECT BOARD

PURE - Atira

Pure

• What is Pure?

• Pure = Publication and Research

• Product of Danish company – Atira http://www.atira.dk/en/

• Successfully in use at 20+ UK Universities including several Russell Group institutions

• Who is it for?

• Any staff at the University of Bristol who carry out research and publish the results of research

Pure will contain information on:

• Academic and research staff (from PIMS)• University structure/ organisation hierarchy (from PIMS)• Research grant information (from CODA)• Postgraduate research student supervision (from SITS)• Research applications and awards (from ORCA)• Research outputs/ publications including full-text and periodic

downloads of citation data

And will allow us to collect:• Esteem indicators/ research activity• Research groupings - Institutes, Themes, groups• Collaborator information• Events (e.g. Conferences)

Conceptualisation of a Research Information System at the University of Bristol

Benefits

For individual academics and researchers:• Improved transparency and access to view and manage

information about own research activity within a single system

• Harvesting of publications - will save staff time and effort

• Enhanced visibility of research

• Re-using the information for automatic display of web pages and creation of CVs reduces the need for repeated data entry and duplication of effort

• Pure is one system which will be used for several different purposes including REF2014. This means less separate systems for staff to have to learn how to use

• The system is user-friendly and intuitive

Example of an academic personal view of Pure

Setting up an ongoing publications harvest

Visual representation of research relations

Benefits

For academic managers in schools and faculties:• Valuable tool for research management and performance

enhancement

• Improved visibility and access to information on research activity within the organisation, including information not previously collected in a University system – esteem indicators, impact, research groupings etc.

• A facility for reporting on research activity within the organisation including advancements in reporting on research groupings

• More accurate and timely information to support evidence-based strategic and operational decision-making

• Pure will improve the processes for collecting information e.g. Harvesting of publications from online databases.

Dashboard facility for academic managers

Pure’s reporting module

BenefitsGeneral benefits for the University as a whole:

• Pure will provide a single source of information about research at the University of Bristol

• Transparency of data will drive improvements in data quality

• The integration of existing information and collection of new information will lead to an improved understanding of the breadth of research activity

• Pure is a commercial system used by other UK universities and therefore offers continual system improvements and developments in line with sector requirements

• Pure will be used for the development of the University’s REF 2014 submission

• PurePortal: Improved visibility of research information for external audiences. Will enable us to showcase and highlight research activity.

Example of PurePortal

• PurePortal = Pure information publically available for searching and browsing• Browse across the University organisation hierarchy, research groups, content type• Method by which full text will be made available (replacing ROSE) and publications metadata available (replacing IRIS)• Will make content available for Google and similar search engines including making content available for Google Scholar• Content is inter-related• Content is entirely driven by information in Pure and therefore no manual re-entry of information is required

Example of PurePortal

•Example external view of a publication on the PurePortal•The full text is available•Potential to have ‘Amazon-like’ features such as ‘publications by the same authors’•Ability to browse to look at an internal author personal page•Able to browse to look at information by organisations that are associated to the publication e.g. Schools, research groups•Future potential to link pieces of content- the example here shows the publication linked to a seminar•View the graph of related content

Example of PurePortal

REF 2014 system

TimescalesFROM TO ACTIVITY

MAR JUN Project team work on integration of Pure with PIMS, SITS, CODA and ORCA. Initial data transfers from IRIS, ROSE and the Mock REF system

JUN IRIS and ROSE will become read-only and will be closed to new entries

JUN JUL Project team will complete the transfer of all IRIS and ROSE data to Pure (around 117,000 publication records) and transfer of Mock REF system data

JUL AUG Series of presentations to faculties about Pure. User-guides, training and drop-in clinics offered to assist academics and administrators with using Pure

AUG Pure becomes available for academics and researchers to begin using

SEP OCT External web views of Pure information are developed and become live

SEP/OCT

The Pure REF module is available to support the University’s 2012 Mock REF

Timescales and priorities• For the August 2012 launch of the system the focus will be

on the following areas:– Publications and full-text– REF module– Research groupings– Esteem indicators/ research activities– Web views of the information– Basic reporting functionality

• Future opportunities will be:– Research taxonomy of keywords (managed or free form)– Equipment– Investigate potential of using Pure to support funder

information requirements e.g. RCUK ROS– Day-to-day (non REF) recording of examples of impact– More advanced reporting functionality

Communications

• Contacts and support• pure-support@bristol.ac.uk

• Jenny O'Grady, Research Analyst and Project Manager

• Hilary Browne, Research Information System Administrator

• Website: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/index.html

• Online FAQs

• Communications – Emails, Roadshows

• Formal Training – Staff Development course

• Other Training – Drop-in Clinics, User Guides, Online Help