EPrints: A Hybrid CRIS/Repository?

Abstract

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a repository collects and manages research papers, data, reports, patents and software (curating many kinds of research outputs for immediate access and long-term preservation) but that it is just one of the systems that a CRIS has to interact with. Specialised research databases are used not only for research outputs, but for human resources, project management, finance, grant funding and research expertise. A CRIS offers a comprehensive overview of an institution’s research activities, pulling together information from all of these research-relevant databases to improve the administrative processes of an institution.

EPrints, as a repository, supports the CERIF standard to allow it to communicate with CRIS systems, exchanging relevant information about research publications, to provide a comprehensive picture of the research aspect of an institution’s business activities.

However, in some universities a repository also provides some degree of research management reporting – publications by research group and topic, according to citation impact and other criteria. This uses information from the HR department (organizational structure in terms of research group affiliation), requiring it to be incorporated into the repository. In doing so, the repository starts to act (in a small and incomplete way) like a CRIS.