In this session you will learn how we -at FRIS- use PIDs, how we make the use of it mandatory but we also like to challenge you with the difficulties we face and we very much like to learn from your solutions. Which PID do you use for research infrastructures? How do you handle if there is a different value given for the same object and within the same PID authority?
And we will show how we use pids as a tool to build Golden Records which are used for research reporting for Flanders' most important funder.
FRIS, the regional CRIS of Flanders
FRIS, or “Flanders Research Information Space” is the regional CRIS in Flanders. FRIS captures information on publicly funded research performed in Flanders. We do this by connecting directly with the CRIS-systems of all Flemish universities and many other knowledge institutions. These automated connections enable research information to be updated all the time – or should be. For the smaller institutions, we have built an admin interface so information can be put in our database.
More than 80 research institutions deliver metadata information of different types. In FRIS we have now research information of more than:
- 80.000 projects
- 700.000 research outputs
- 7000 patents
- 800 research infrastructures
- 4000 datasets
Aliasing and building of golden records: PID’s required!
As we have information, sometimes more or less the same, from different sources, we will alias or build so-called Golden Records. This are merged views of eg projects or research outputs. The only way to be able to alias or merge certain objects, is by using PIDs. So we work with a.o. ORCID, DOI, Handle, funder-PID’s but for research infrastructure we do have a problem as we do not have a PID in place for infrastructures yet – or only a local one. The other challenge we face is the adoption by the research institutions. Which PID do you use for research infrastructures? And how has it been adopted to use consistently?
FRIS is a regional CRIS, managed by the government, with a small team and no curators. We use the data for analyses but also to use and let it be reused for monitoring purposes.
For example the biggest funder is the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). For the reporting of research, information is reused from the FRIS-database. Stricto senso it means that information that is not in FRIS, will not be in de report. Researchers therefore must be sure that all metadata is delivered WITH a pid as we are going the build Golden Records based on PIDs. Another requirement is that information needs to be linked: research outputs to project to be able to identify the outcome of projects.
So using PIDs becomes more important, also for objects where PIDs are not common. In the case of FWO, the research fund depends on the quality of the research report and therefore needs to be of high quality and complete.
Our presentation will give you a glimpse of how we work but at the same time we like to share the pitfalls and corner cases we bump into.
Pascale works as a business expert in team FRIS of the science policy division of the Flemish Government. The Flanders Research Information Space (FRIS) is a digital platform gathering all information on publicly funded research in Flanders. Pascale was part of FRIS since the very start of it in 2006.