Mr. van der Graaf outlines
the programme of the meeting. The first part of the meeting will
be used to review the minutes of the Platform meeting of 26/27
January 1996. The second part will consist of presentations from
all members to inform each other on new developments and to exchange
information. The third part will mainly be dedicated to the discussion
of the final version of the Code of Best Practice the Current
Research Information Systems and the Final Report to be
presented to the European Commission. Finally, there will be
a discussion of the Platform activities for the next year.
Mrs. Alfreda Regout expressed the need to reformulate of Mr. Cantarella presentation on the last meeting (please give text).
Mr. van der Graaf informed the members that Mr. Hunt Williams keeps his interest in the Platform activities and reminded the proposal of Mr. Williams related to voluntary contributions to the cost of the Platform meetings. Then he asked Mrs. Ramos about the costs of the organisation of the Lisbon meeting. Mrs. Ramos replied that this meeting is an invitation of JNICT and it will be totally financed by this organisation. It was then agreed that for the next Platform meeting the voluntary contributions' system will be implemented if necessary. It is not needed to fix an amount, but some people (e.g. Mrs. Koskiala) would like to know beforehand.
It was also decided that the Email list will pass to the new secretariat, but the old address will be kept for some time. It was observed that the Email utilisation has been very weak, and that it should be dynamized, for example with news of the ERGO project.
There was not many changes in Belgium situation. It continues to exist data collections, not databases. The French-speaking database will be available on March 1997. Concerning the INTERNET, the available fields will be in conformity with ERGO decisions,
Mr. Mazuranic asks if the
technical solution for automatic data collection is the most appropriate
or if it is not a duplication of work? What about a tool to input
data and put them on the web?
CNRS has an in-house database of research projects, which is accessible in the INTERNET by subsets. At the moment they have two: research projects and persons. There are constraining laws for personal information and therefore this subset is only available to the CNRS laboratories (150). There is a difficult situation to give information outside France. Juridical problems are now being posed concerning these issues. Mr. Millet stresses that the regional databases are not accessible in the INTERNET, only TELELAB- a national database- can be consulted there, but its information about the laboratories is not so important.
Mr. van der Graaf asks if the cost of this project is not very high. Mrs. Molvig explains that, due to the size of the project, the cost is very good.
Mrs. Wren presents the FEDRIP - Federal Research in progress -, which includes 15 databases from 15 different organisations (NTIS). She proposes to make a demonstration at the end of the meeting for those interested in this product.
Mrs. Asserson, who is representing
Mr. Hauge from Bergen University, is part of a Norwegian group
responsible for co-ordinating and standardising University R&D
Information Systems. The FORSKDOK project, which is developed
by user influence, integrates information on publications, expertise and projects, Concerning the web interface,
they are trying to introduce full text documentation, but the
copyright problems are very restrictive.
Mrs. Koskiala explains that there has been quite an increase in the databases (projects, publications,
experts). They are following a common national recommendation,
which was decided in a meeting including people from ail universities
and small institutes that occurred last Spring. There is the
intention to use TRIP to search on the web, starting with ongoing
projects. They are trying to produce the CD-ROM version of the
databases. Concerning copyrights, Mrs. Koskiala stresses that
licensing agreements are very difficult.
The database projects started on 1995 when three local systems joined a host at Lurid University. The address is: http://cris.ldc.lu.se/. They are expecting that an integrated system, containing projects, results, expertise and funding organisations, can be available on April/May 1997. Some of the information is both in Swedish and English. Mr. Mazuranic presents a diagram of the envisaged CRIS-Sweden.
Mr. Mazuranic considers that
the project of automatic registration on the web (presented by
some of the members) is interesting for the local systems, but
not for CRIS-Sweden. In order to better develop CRIS-Sweden,
Mr. Mazuranic suggests that the Swedish Ministry of Education
should create a CRIS-Secretariat. Mrs. Koskiala comments that
a top-down solution is always very difficult.
Mr. Hovmand gives an overview
of the situation in his organisation. Since 1988, three bases
were created: projects, publications and institutions profiles.
Most of the content is translated into English. Now search interface
is fully integrated with the web. Data are provided at a voluntary
base. Mr. Hovmand stresses that they are trying to reach other
institutions/universities (apparently only one is missing). They
started the implementation of full text document half a year ago,
at a small scale. One problem that arises is to prevent the provider
to make changes. Mrs. Asserson suggested a possible solution:
the provider should deliver the electronic product to the institution
that would, then, work on it.
Mr. Gubberud informs that a database is maintained but they have improved the layout. They are looking at new database systems and collecting electronic formatted data. They are also searching sites to be linked and programs to collect data from other databases.
Mrs. van Meet will substitute
Mr. van der Graaf in the NBOI. She belongs to the Social Sciences
Information and Documentation Center and is also secretary to
the ESCID. She informs that they are working on specifications
for a new system.
Mr. Niedermayer informs the
members that the database contains the university research at
local and national level. It is available on the web and in CD-ROM.
Some researchers put information themselves, other, mainly local
Universities, prefer to collect the data and send it as a
block or keep them in a local service. The input form will be
a new task for the future.
Mr. Cleary makes a presentation of CORDIS foreseen improvements: full text on the web (40.000 documents); seven interactive tools; CORDIS databases on the web; concerning the language issue, apart the English, the new ones are French and German, and efforts are being made to implement the Spanish; RTD-Results and RTD-Partners are being reduced to 40%.; RTD-Contacts is being reformatted. It is very difficult to keep it updated. CORDIS databases are updated weekly. It is also planned to integrate full text, put bibliographic information on the web and expand the contents of the service.
Changes in EUROPA and CORDIS
Servers are being discussed, because they are managed by both
DG XII and DG XIII.
Mr. van der Graaf makes a
presentation concerning Netherlands and the institutional changes
for the year of 1997, He focuses the following issues: the transformation
of NBOI into NIWI (Netherlands Institute of Scientific Information
Services), its field of action and the reasons for the change,
the developments of NOD on WWW, the Expertise data and the top
R&D Industries survey. He informs also that NBOI-Product
group Research Information will be complete on September 1997
and that Mrs. van Meel will be responsible for that area.
Richard Cleary explains that it was decided to present to the Commission a separate publication containing the Code of Best Practice as such, so that in the future it can be distributed to everyone interested in it. The Code will be a reduced version of the Final Report.
Most members commented on
the contents of the Code and considered that it was not
detailed enough. The reference to SMS's was considered too explicit
and definitions were missing. Reference to standards should also
be made.
The discussion was completed.
It was decided to make a final version according to the suggestions
received.
Some members agreed that the work done by the three sub-groups was not integrated in the Final Report in a satisfactory way. It was suggested that more text should be added to chapter four and the mandatory fields should be completed. The co-ordinators of the sub-groups should join Cartermill to finalise the report.
Taking in to consideration
the fact that CERIF is not updated, it was suggested and decided
to submit to the European Commission a proposal of the Platform
concerning the revision of CERIF and its extension to all information
types. It was decided that it will be a contract work and that
it shall be presented on January 1997.
The Secretariat of the Platform was transferred to the University of Bergen. according to the offer received by Mr. Hauge.
Mr. Mazuranic suggests that all members of the Platform send contributions on what issues would be interesting to discuss next year. It was also suggested that new ideas should be presented by Email and analysed in the next Platform meeting. Mr. van der Graaf suggests that new meetings should be organised by themes and the next one could be "electronic data acquisition".
With regard to the next international
Congress, it was decided to write to Mr. Bellardinelli and propose
him a Programme Committee of five persons. This Programme
Committee will integrate two members of the Secretariat, Mrs.
Marga van Meel, Mrs. Sinikka Koskiala and Mr, Millet, who was
going to consult his office on this issue. It was agreed to set
the Congress to October/November 1997 in Luxembourg, should Mr.
Bellardinelli keeps the invitation to support it.
The next Platform meeting
was set to 30/31 May 1997, and the members asked Mrs. Asserson
to organise it in Bergen, Norway. Mrs. Koskiala proposes that
members could present at the Bergen meeting some results of the
promotion and awareness raising of CRIS in their countries.
Mr. van der Graaf expressed his gratitude to Mrs. Ramos in the name of all Platform members participants in this Lisbon meeting. Then, all Platform members thanked Mr. van der Graaf for his excellent work as chairman of the Secretariat and all his efforts towards a common decision on the Code of Best Practice report.
Mrs. Ramos and Miss Correia took the responsibility for the minutes of the meeting. A draft version will be sent by Email within two weeks.