Category Archives: oa.rim

Supporting open access, integrating distributed research platforms, and building a research information management platform | Coughlin + Vitale | 2022-05 Code4Lib Journal

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Academic libraries are often called upon by their university communities to collect, manage, and curate information about the research activity produced at their campuses. Proper research information management (RIM) can be leveraged for multiple institutional contexts, including networking, reporting activities, building faculty profiles, and supporting the reputation management of the institution. In the last ten to fifteen years the adoption and implementation of RIM infrastructure has become widespread throughout the academic world. Approaches to developing and implementing this infrastructure have varied, from commercial and open-source options to locally developed instances. Each piece of infrastructure has its own functionality, features, and metadata sources. There is no single application or data source to meet all the needs of these varying pieces of research information, many of these systems together create an ecosystem to provide for the diverse set of needs and contexts. This paper examines the systems at Pennsylvania State University that contribute to our RIM ecosystem; how and why we developed another piece of supporting infrastructure for our Open Access policy and the successes and challenges of this work.

Compliance monitoring in RIM systems: not a US thing? Think again. – Hanging Together

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“Monitoring research policy compliance is a major driver of research information management activities. That was a key finding of the 2018 report, Practices and Patterns in Research Information Management: Findings from a Global Survey, collaboratively prepared by OCLC Research and euroCRIS, which describes the global research information management (RIM) landscape, from a survey of more than 380 respondents in 44 countries.

The report found that 79% of responding institutions described monitoring and supporting institutional compliance with external mandates as an extremely important or important driver of RIM activities. One Australian respondent commented, “Compliance with government regulations is the main driver behind RIM activities.”…”

‘Scholarly Book Publishing Workflows and Implications for RIM Systems’ | Jeff Pooley

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Rebecca Bryant, Charles Watkinson, and Rebecca Welzenbach, writing for the Scholarly Kitchen on a science-humanities gap in metadata retrieval:

The ability to harvest accurate and mostly complete metadata for researchers in STEM disciplines is quite good in all of these examples. However, metadata harvesting from any of these sources provides disappointing results for humanities and some social science scholars.  When we look at a researcher’s profile, we may notice that a book (or more than one) is missing.

They’re writing about the brave new world of RIM. Short for “Research Information Management,” RIM software is mainly used by universities and other research entities to measure and predict scholars’ productivity.

Point taken: The humanities, and social science book disciplines too, have some metadata problems. But I’m not sure we want to oil the metric gears, given the way that quantified measures of “impact” have distorted scholars’ truth-seeking commitments for decades. Worse still is the fact that the major players in the RIM market are Elsevier (Pure) and Springer Nature parent Holtzbrinck (Elements). In both cases, the publishing oligopolists are harvesting academics’ behavior and re-selling them as prediction products—on top of their windfall subscription-and-APC profits.

Yes, metadata resiliency is a good thing. But let’s not inadvertently build the road to surveillance publishing.

Research Information Management in the United States

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“The Research Information Management in the United States two-part report series provides a first-of-its-kind documentation of RIM practices at US research universities that presents a thorough examination of RIM practices, goals, stakeholders, and system components.

Research information management (RIM) is a rapidly growing area of investment in US research universities. While RIM practices are mature in Europe and other locales in support of nationalized reporting requirements, RIM practices at US research universities have taken a different—and characteristically decentralized—course. A complex environment characterized by multiple use cases, stakeholders, and systems has resulted. 

This report provides a landscape overview of the state of research information management in the United States, makes sense of the complexity, and offers recommendations targeted at University leaders and other institutional decision makers. 

We hope that the information presented in this report can support library leaders in talking about RIM systems and practices with institutional stakeholders and to advocate for the role of the library in this work.”

Establishing and promoting an institutional repository and research information management system | Emerald Insight

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Abstract:  Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences and to highlight lessons learned from the establishment of the institutional repository (IR) while collaborating in a state-wide initiative to showcase the scholarly output of New Jersey researchers.

 

Design/methodology/approach

The authors discuss how they used the case study method to collaborate with multiple stakeholders from across their university to establish an IR to support the University’s vision plan.

 

Findings

The authors found through strong relationship building and consistent outreach that they could launch a successful IR while enhancing the scholarly profile of their university faculty.