CERIF in Action: Synthesise, standardise and productionise CERIF for Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

The CERIF in Action (CIA) project builds on previous work in the UK to explore the feasibility of adopting CERIF as a standard exchange format in order to improve operational efficiency and data quality across the research community. Unlike previous projects, CIA is looking at live operational systems and use cases relevant to all UK research organisations.

Whilst CERIF-XML itself is a standard schema, there is recognition that the UK research community is in danger of diluting the potential power of the standard and the benefits it can bring because of the varying ways in which CERIF has been mapped at the detail level in earlier projects. In order to be truly interoperable and maximise the efficiency savings that have been estimated if the UK were to adopt CERIF, agreement needs to be reached regarding the operational implementation of CERIF, e.g. which entities and semantics to use.