CERIF - Information Retrieval of Research Information in a Distributed Heterogeneous Environment

Abstract

User's demands to have access to complete and actual information about research may require integration of data from different CRISs. CRISs are rarely homogenous systems and problems of CRISs integration must be addressed from a technological point of view. Implementation of CRIS providing access to heterogeneous data distributed among a number of CRISs is described. A few technologies – distributed databases, web services, semantic web are used for distributed CRIS to address different user requirements. Distributed databases serve to implement very efficient integration of homogenous systems, web services - to provide open access to research information, semantic web – to solve problems of integration semantically and structurally heterogeneous data sources and provide intelligent data retrieval interfaces. The problems of data completeness in distributed systems are addressed and CRIS-adequate solution for data completeness is suggested.