Research information management (RIM), also often called Current Research Information Systems (CRISs), is the aggregation, curation, and utilization of metadata about research activities. Institutional RIM adoption, in tandem with activities by publishers, funders, and libraries, can help to reliably connect a complex scholarly communications landscape of researchers, affiliations, publications, datasets, grants, projects, and their persistent identifiers.
OCLC Research recognizes that libraries today are playing a larger role in research information management at institutions worldwide, and is conducting research on behalf of the library community in order to better understand library roles and institutional needs in this rapidly changing ecosystem.
This year we have partnered with euroCRIS as well as with librarians from OCLC Research Library Partnership institutions to develop a survey to help us understand and report on the state of RIM activities worldwide.
We invite universities, research institutes, and other research organizations to participate in the survey, and to help us learn more about:
- Why have institutions adopted–or are considering adopting–RIM infrastructures?
- How are institutions using RIM functionality? What are the principal uses?
- Who are institutional stakeholders, and what, in particular, is the role of libraries?
- What processes and systems are in use? How do they interoperate with internal and external systems? What is the scope?
- What are the principal drivers?
- What are regional and international differences in drivers, uses, and processes?
Survey findings and data will be published CC-BY in 2018.
Take the survey.
More information, including a PDF copy of the survey, is available at oc.lc/rim. A Spanish language version of the survey will be available in November, thanks to partners at CONCYTEC, the Peruvian National Council for Science, Technology and Technological Innovation, which will be using this instrument to assess RIM practices in Peruvian universities and institutes, as it seeks to establish a national RIM infrastructure.
I also invite you to read the recent OCLC Research position paper titled Research Information Management: Defining RIM and the Library’s Role. This publication, prepared by OCLC Research and a working group of librarians representing OCLC Research Library Partnership institutions, is intended to help libraries and other institutional stakeholders understand developing research information management practices—and particularly the value add that libraries can offer in a complex ecosystem.
Rebecca Bryant, PhD (she/her), previously worked as a university administrator and as community director at ORCID. Today she applies that experience in her role as Senior Program Officer with the OCLC Research Library Partnership, conducting research and developing programming to support 21st century libraries and their parent institutions.
