The euroCRIS CERIF Refactoring Pilot Project

Abstract

The Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) standard has been with us for a rather long time in its current form and has served the research information management community well. Plenty of CRIS systems worldwide have been designed and built following the CERIF model as developed and maintained by the euroCRIS CERIF Task Group as a means to ensure the maximum possible level of system interoperability.

An increasing number of reflections have however been raised within the CERIF Task Group in charge of its maintenance on the need to refactor the current CERIF structure along with the processes for extending or building associated software or extensions. This work involves updating the CERIF spec to more current software engineering practices that have modularity and extensibility at its core so that it is easier to decentralise the work on the standard and tools.

The CERIF Refactoring project started at the beginning of 2021 and is currently addressing the tentative specs for the refactored core CERIF model, which will eventually be shared with the euroCRIS community for comment.