A list of all members of the Platform is given in annexe 1
In his introduction Maurits van der Graaf outlines the programme of this meeting. The first part of the meeting will be used to inform each other on new developments and to exchange information, whereas the second part will rnainly be dedicated to the discussion on Platform activities. such as the Code of Practice Project en the ERGO Project. The Code of Practice Project deals with issues concerning information acquisition, input and indexing,- the ERGO Project deals mainly with database publishing.
He gives a brief outline about the recent developments in the Netherlands. NBOI-activities have been very much influenced by the : a new interface is being developed for the Netherlands Research Database (NOD) and a special study has been undertaken to explore the possibilities of presenting the Directory of Research Information Systems on the Web. During the discussions of the corning days, much attention will be paid to the impact of the fast growing WWW on the activities of the members of the platform.
Mrs. Molvig (RIKS library, National Off-ice for Research Documentation, Norway). The RIKS Library, a national institution, has been assigned to advise on rnatters dealing with co-ordination and planning of libraries and research documentation. Mrs. Molvig presents a detailed outline of the criteria that a national information system has to meet-
Next to the already existing information systems, such as Forskningsprosjektbasen, Forskdok, INFOIL. Health-projects, Thesis-db and Education-db, attention is being paid in Norway to the development of some new databases: Dr. grads-registers, Patent + Trademark-db. Narcotics-db, Environmental Projects, and Women Research-db. Two other databases are being considered: University Research Projects-db. and Research Council-db.
Mrs. Asserson, who is representing
Mr. Hauge of Bergen University, is co-ordinating and standardising
university R&D information systems. She informs the meeting
that the shared bibliographic system of the Norwegian University, BIBSYS, has a module for research documentation
FORSKDOK. This module, which is not yet linked to the EUCRIS-map,
is available for both searching and registration on the Web.
The homepage address is: http://www.ub.uib.no/avdeling/fdok/
Since 1993, the situation
in Germany has not changed. The 5 most important database producers
are discussing the possibilities for co-operation, however to
date without concrete results. Also in Germany there is at the
universitias as tendency to present their own research
information systems on the Web.
Mr. Cantarella gives an overview
of the situation in Belgium- Before 1288, when the Belgian Federation
was founded, there was 1 database with research information, which
was very difficult to access.
At the moment there are 3 (planned) data collections: 2 for the communities and 1 for the federation.
The final aim is to realise a common database in 1996.
Mr. Niedermayer explains that there are 2 research information systems in Austria. The funding organisations have their own systems on funded research. This system is not open to the public. The other system is FODOK. FODOK contains information on both funded and non-funded research. The system is updated every 3 years. The main problem is the lack of manpower and funds. The whole system is being managed by I % fte. FODOK is being linked to EUCRIS (http://derpi.tuwien.ac.at/), and is carrying out an experiment on the Web with an input form, both for new registrations as well as for updating. Problems that are being faced deal with questions such as. quality control, validation, who is authorised to update the information, etc. Another new development is the SDI-service, dissemination of research information via email in connection with online data entry via VVWW, using the CERIF-classification.
There is a number of research information systems (for instance. Helsinki University of Technology, Occupational Health Research Institute, Geological Survey of Finland).
New developments in Finland deal mainly with the presentation output of research information. A proposal for a 'common project format' has been formulated, which looks very similar to the CER1r-format. A current research Information system is being developed. This system distinguished between 3 types of records: projects, publications and experts. The various fields of these records are all linked to one of the other record files- For instance: the 'Project leader' of a research record is linked to the "expert register"; the 'organisation name' is linked to organisation's homepage. The whole system is still in a development stage. Finland is very interested to co-operate in the ERGO-project.
Some years ago, three organisations
have taken the initiative to start a Central National Research
Database in Sweden. This database, which is using the CERIF-format,
consists of a number of local databases of.
The Swedish Natural Science
Research Council (NFRI),
The Swedish National Board
for Industrial and Technical Development (NUTEK),
The Swedish Research Council
for Engineering Sciences(TFR).
Since the system is based
upon the information present at these funding organisations, it
can easily be used to provide all kinds of management output.
The output reports that were shown by Mr. Mazuranic were very
impressive.
Mrs. Ramos represents the Portuguese National Board for Scientific and Technological Research (JNICT). The JNICT information system is a centralised system, which consist of three databases. R&D Projects' R&D Personnel and Financial resources for R&D activities. Since the last ERGO-meeting, the situation has not changed very much. There is a central homepage (http://www.puug.pt/portugal/ensino.html) from which the user gets access to the homepages of the various universities and research institutes. So far, there is no access to the JNICT R&D Projects database. Portugal contributes to BEST-Europe.
The ERGO-Project has been Initiated by the innovation Programme. Its main objective is to formulate the specifications for the European Research Gateways Organisation. As already stated by Mr. Van der Graaf, the ERGO-Project deals with the dissemination of research information. Mr. Finch sales that the ERGO-group is only guided and not steered by the Commission (DG XII-D-2). It is also not limited to research information. In future, at" other kinds of information will be "ken into account.
In its set-up, ERGO aims at ono node for each country- How does this idea relates to the competition by, for instance, the universities? Finally, Mr. Finch asks the question if the Platform could deal With the problem of standardisation of the.interface functionality's.
The Code of Good Practice Project, introduced by Mr. Campbell, deals with the collection and Processing of data concerning research information. The project proposal (draft, June 1995) has been distributed to the participants. The main need is to make an inventory of the current practices in order to harmonise the information acquisition and production methods. The discussion that took place is incorporated in the report of the meeting of the next day.
Data validation is carried out by the host and by the organisation, where the researcher is located. The number of adds and updates is approx. 600 /week.
The minutes were approved without any changes.
It is: cris-I@nic.surfnet.nl
If you mail an email to this address it will automatically be distributed to all participants on the list.
The email list is now a closed
list. However, the secretariat has got a few requests from non
Members to be included in the list- After some discussion it is
decided that interested people are welcome on the list- If a member
want to convey a confidential message only to Members, than other
means of communication should be used.
The NBOI is willing to continue the secretariat for this calendar year. The members have asked Mr. Mazuranic of the Swedish Natural Science Research Council to fulfil the secretariat from 1 January 1997. Mr. Mazuranic will consult his management about this matter.
It was felt that there was a need for another meeting in autumn of this year. Asked on the costs of this meeting Mr. van der Graaf estimated the costs for the Amsterdam meeting on approx. DFL 2500.- (meeting rooms, lunch, dinner). Proposed by Mr. Williams it was decided that members will contribute to the cost of the meetings of the Platform with a voluntary contribution- This would also help the organisation of the next meeting. The members then asked Mrs. Ramos (JNICT, Lisbon, Portugal) to organise the next meeting (suggested date: 819 November 1996). The NBCI meanwhile welcomes voluntary contributions for the costs of the Amsterdam meeting on its bank account with ABN-AMRO Bank nr. 46.72.64.279 in the name of KNAW/NBOI, Amsterdam.
With regard to the next international
congress it was decided to ask Mr. Bellardinelli (who was appointed
as the next organiser) if any progress has been made. [The congress
is planned in spring 1997].
After a lengthy discussion it was decided to form 4 working parties, and already the interest for participating in these parties was gauged.
For the whole project 1 0
1 mandays are planned. When the working parties finish their
work. a review meeting is foreseen with the leaders of the working
parties. This has to lead to a draft report, which will be discussed
on a Platform meeting (estimated time- 0-5 day). The project
will be managed by Cartermill, as it is part of their bid for
the CORDIS-production. It is estimated that the whole project
will take 7 months in total. An elaborate description of the
tasks of the working parties, participants and the time table
as discussed here, as well as the projected mandays of work, will
be put together by Cartermill and sent to all Members of the Platform
for comment, [A draft proposal has been distributed on 4 March
1996]
6 Members of the Platform
are also participating in the ERGO project. It was felt that
this link would guarantee a good information exchange between
the Platform and the ERGO-working party.
Mrs. Molvig stated that there was a clear interest from users for the Norwegian data on non current projects. This was also the experience of Mr. Hovmund. Mr. Williams said that his experience was that approx. 5% of the users of his system was also interested in the archival data.
A few database producers produce
their database (also) an CD-ROM. it was concluded that a joint
CD-ROM with all European databases on it, might be relatively
easy to produce and market and at least would be a interesting
study object and discussion topic for a next meeting.
Mr- Hunt Williams said that there were already 3300 sites that linked to his WWW site (of Community of Science - COS) with the USA currant research information. He invited everyone to link to his WWW site and was pleased to have the COS databases included in the ERGO-gateway if possible. He would like to be put on the Platform email list and invited the members to enter a more formal relationship with COS through a membership of the Consortium.