Keep the Best – Forget the Rest? Towards Models for CRISs Integrating Heterogeneous Information
Maximilian Stempfhuber · euroCRIS DSpace CRIS digital repository (The International Organisation for Research Information) · 2004
Standards have so far been the primary means to ensure a minimum level of quality and common metadata structures across current research information systems (CRISs) and to support data exchange.The users' perspective is currently covered by suggestions for standard features a CRIS should offer at the user interface level, like free text search.But is this a sufficient precondition or a viable way for building information services that suit the whole targeted audience without neglecting special requirements of individuals?In this paper we argue that in situations with many different data providers and users of data, standards per se are no sufficient means of ensuring usefulness, acceptance and sustainability of a service.We believe that only explicitly modelling the users' and data providers' perspectives of CRISs at a much higher level, and accounting right from the start for differences that can not be standardized will lead to a common basis for communication between interest groups and to systems that deliver a common user experience.