1. Workshop Authority Files
Jisc Digital Festival 11-12 March Birmingham

2. 2
9.30
• Introduction Knowledge Exchange
• Authority Files
– from library silo to web of data
– why/how beneficial to research
– four use cases
– CRIS transforms into CRIS?
• Opinion poll and discussion
10.10
• Introduction CASRAI
• Work on Authority Files
10.25
• Wrap up & close
Programme
- Bas Cordewener
- Leo Waaijers, Maurits de Graaf
- David Baker
- Verena Weigert

3. 3

4. 4

5. Authority
files
signposts
library silos
Research Information
of
KE publication

6. Web of Documents/
Web of Data
viausing
SPARQL
Our insights

7. Authority Files or ‘Controlled Vocabularies’ are lists
• of entities or ‘things’ (people, publications, journals, data
sets, organisations, repositories, etc.)
• that are uniquely identified by a number (identifiers such as
ORCID for re-searchers, DOI for publications, ISBN for
books, ISNI for organisations, etc.)
• containing information to characterise and qualify the entities
(e.g. if a journal is Open Access, which researcher contributed to a
specific project, which funder financed that project, etc.)
• and are authoritative (maintained by an expert
organisation, registry agent, etc.; or authoritative in itself being
widely recognised, widely used by significant audiences, etc.

8. ‘Crosswalking’ between Authority Files creates value:
• Using these lists, it becomes possible to link entities via their
unique identifiers and by these combinations provide new or
enriched information; e.g. what publications link (via DOI and
ORCID) to a specific project.
• This so called ‘crosswalking’ helps stakeholders in the research
community to combine information, to gain insight, and inform
funding and policy decisions regarding the research.
10

9. Why?
A growing volume and impact
of research results necessitate
more transparancy and
individual, organisational and
national profiling.
7

10. Benefits of Authority Files
• Discovery: Authority files are essential in discovery of research
information by bridging sources that are not interoperable nor
linked.
• Trust and reliability: Authority files support reliable and trusted
identification of key elements in research information.
• Accountability: Authority files support the ability to track, report
and measure aspects like funding, research output, and impact.
Funders can track the research output resulting from their funding.
• Transactional efficiency: Authority Files help to avoid the need
to re-key data many times and support data exchange. This
benefits all stakeholders.
• New knowledge: Authority files greatly facilitate the ability to
draw corre-lations across data and support analytics and decision
making in the management of research.

11. Four use cases
• Where to publish reliably research data?
Needs new authority file for repositories
• How is Open Access evolving?
Needs enhancement of existing authority file for journals
• Making German culture Web compliant
Needs integration of existing authority files
• Analyses and new ‘business’ information
CRIS = Current Research Information Systems

12. That Robbert and André are authors with ISO Name Identifiers x and y: ISNI database (incl. ORCID) at
global level
ISNI: <ISNI: x is_a Author>
That University ABC is a University with ISNI:z
ISNI: <ISNI:z is_a Organisation>
That Robbert (ISNI:x) and André (ISNI:y) have a working relation to University ABC (ISNI:z): HR-database
at University
HR@UniversityABC: <ISNI:z has_employee ISNI:x>
That University ABC has different departments
HR@UniversityABC: <department:n is_a department>
That the departments of University ABC are in a specific Research Area
HR@UniversityABC: <department:n is_research_area NOD:n>
Who work in these departments
HR@UniversityABC: <ISNI:n works_in department:n>
What authors (ISNI) have contributed to which publications (DOI): DOI database at global level
DOI: <DOI:n has_author ISNI:n>
What Journals there are: ISSN database at global level;
ISSN: <ISSN:n is_a ScientificJournal>
What publications (DOI) belong to what journals (ISSN): DOI database at global level;
DOI: <DOI:n published_in ISSN:n>
When a publication (DOI) has been published: DOI database at global level;
DOI: <DOI:n published_on w3c:date:n>
What the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) for each Journal (ISSN): CWTS database at global level;
CWTS: <ISSN:n has_a JIF:CWTS:n>
What the defined Research Areas are. (on a national level, since the reporting in this case is a national
matter): NOD (Nederlandse Onderzoeksdatabase) at national level; In our case
NOD: <NOD:PopularScience is_a ResearchArea>
What the definition is for an A-class journal is per Research Area, by defining a minimal Journal Impact
Factor for each Research Area (in this case Popular Science): VSNU at national level.;
VSNU:A-ClassDefinition: <NOD:PopularScience has_minimal JIF:CWTS:n>
CRIS = Crosswalk Research Information Service?

13. Opinion poll: ‘yes’ or ‘no’
Think great, start small
Statement 1
My institution should start tomorrow creating an ORCID on
behalf of every member of the academic staff who hasn’t one.
Statement 2
Organisations in the scholarly world should mandate ISNIs as
organisational identifiers for their output.
Statement 3
My institution would welcome clinics on cross-walking for CRIS
managers.
Statement 4
My CRIS should not start migrating data to Open Linked Data
format (= RDF triples) soon.
13

14. 14
10.10
• Introduction CASRAI
• Work on Authority Files
10.25
• Wrap up & close
Programme
- David Baker
- Verena Weigert

15. 15

16. 16
10.25
• Wrap up & close
Programme
- Verena Weigert