CRISs as a Management Tool: Experiences and Perspectives at the German Research Foundation DFG

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CRISs as a Management Tool Experiences and
Perspectives at the German Research Foundation
(DFG)
Presented at the 8th international Conference
onCurrent Research Information Systems, May
11-13th, 2006 in Bergen, Norway
Juergen Guedler, German Research Foundation
(DFG), Department of Information Management
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Topics

• Introduction
• Information Management at the German Research
  Foundation
• Products related to the DFGs CRIS
• Further developments

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Topics

• Introduction
• Information Management at the German Research
  Foundation
• Information products related to the DFGs CRIS
• Further developments

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Objectives of presentation
Main idea of CRISs To publish information on
ongoing research projects in an user-friendly
searchable way.

• But a well established CRIS offers more
• Management Information
• Base for statistical analysis
• Base for evaluative studies on research
  programmes
• Base for rankings

The presentation will exemplarily illustrate
these possibilities for the CRIS of the German
Research Foundation (DFG). Conclusions will be
drawn on the special possibilities for funding
agencies, that emerge from a more offensive (and
ideally collaborative) use of own data and data
from partners.
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The German Research Foundation
Who We Are

• central public funding organisation for
  academic research in Germany

What We Do

• promote academic excellence on a competitive
  basis
• serve science and the humanities in all fields
• advise parliaments and public authorities on
  research questions
• support the advancement and education of young
  researchers
• encourage international research cooperation

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Third party funding income of German universities
by source (1999/2000)
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Facts and figures
disciplines All research areas in science and
humanities programmes Project funding,
coordinated programmes, fellowships, prizes
and infrastructure. staff 700 people
(head office in Bonn, dependances in Berlin,
Beijing, Washington, Moscow and New
Delhi) budget growth 1985 500 Mio , 1995
900 Mio , 2005 1.300 Mio New the
so-called Excellence Initiative (add. budget
of 1.6 Billion Euro (2006-2011))
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Consequences of growth I

• Public interest Grown public interest
  in questions of research and research-funding as
  well as on the results of DFG-funded
  research
• Accountability Stakeholders (funds
  providers and taxpayers) ask for transparency in
  the use of funds provided
• Political advice demand for data as a
  base for political decisions (e.g. in the
  context of the above mentioned Excellence-Initia
  tive)
• Base for planning purposes The DFG is
  increasingly asked to legitimate its strategic
  decisions on the basis of statistical data
  and to offer its members (universities) such
  a base for the same purpose

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Consequences of growth II

• For these and other reasons the DFG today is
  asked increasingly
• to inform about its own activities and the
  activities of funded researchers
  (research information) and
• to collect data that allow a fact-driven
  evaluation of these activities (research
  and funding evaluation)

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Topics

• Introduction
• Information Management at the German Research
  Foundation
• Information products related to the DFGs CRIS
• Further developments

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History of Data and Information Management at
the DFG

• Late 70ties till early 90ties Centralized data
  management,
• slow but steadily growing data production by
  a single unit,
• based on a system of office-internal data
  entry forms.
• Use For statistics O N L Y
• Midst of 90ties till 2004 Decentralized data
  Management, fast growing
• data-and-documents-production by around 150
  staff members within
• a mainfraim-based software-architecture
  (All-in-1).
• Additional use Data-based production of
  letters to applicants and reviewers
• as well as of documentations for the
  deciding bodies of the DFG.
• Since 2005 ElektrA a web based tool that
  helps to manage all funding
• programmes of the DFG. Around 450 staff
  members are involved now.
• Additional use support of workflows and
  production of far more detailed
• information on the funding activities and
  procedures of the DFG.

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Base of information services Process produced
data in ElektrA
secure quality
QV
Applicants
send proposals and reports
put information (data documents) in database
ElektrA- DB
rd. 20.000 Persons / year
Departments of the DFG
copy of data
IM
more than450 people part. on data based proposal
management
Evaluative reports / Ranking / statistics
ask for reviews
information services
Reviewers
CRISs online (e.g.Inst-DB, GEPRIS)
rd. 7.000 Persons / year
send reviews
further databased information services (e.g. WWW
of DFG)
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Topics

• Introduction
• Information Management at the German Research
  Foundation
• Information products related to the DFGs CRIS
• Further developments

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Exemplarily information products based on the
DFGs CRIS

• Management Reports
• Statistics and Evaluation
• GEPRIS
• Research Explorer
• Funding-Ranking

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Management Reports
Objective To offer easy accessible inf. on the
process of reviewing and funding (on the base
of more than 40.000 applications yearly) Users
Management-Staff of the DFG Mode
Interactive and personalized user-interface via
DFG-Intranet Size More than 100 specialized
rep. for different manag. purposes Software
Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise Server

Object-orientated Link on ElektrA
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Statistics and Evaluation
Ad-hoc statistics More than 250 statistical
request yearly (2/3 internal, 1/3 external)
on funding- and research-related
topics Analysis Detailled DFG-internal
studies on the acceptance and user-profile
of certain funding-programmes Questionaires
Use of addresses within the database for
online-questionaires on funding- and
research related topics e.g. (published
on www.dfg.de) - Publication Strategies
in Transformation? (acceptance and use
of open access publications) (2005) -
Research and Careers - Experiences and
Professional Development of Former DFG
Fellowship Recipients (2004)
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German Project Information System (GEPRIS)

• GEPRIS is a derivate from the DFGs productive
  data system and
• offers classical CRIS-services
• Abstracts on the objectives of funded projects
• Classifications (e.g. research areas, funding
  instruments, institutions, related countries)
• A broad set of search-possibilities
• GEPRIS is the result of a two-step
  production-process
• First step Preparation of DFG-internal
  data for publishing purposes
• (90 of the presented data)
• Second step Added value by including feedback
  of applicants
• (e.g. key-words, actual
  addresses)

Actually, GEPRIS is under construction. The
new system will be published next
weeks! www.dfg.de/gepris
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GEPRIS Example of a project description

• project-title
• head of project
• project-partners
• discipline
• Abstract
• Administrative Informations

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Research Explorer Directory of German Research
Institutes

• Base DFG-internal database (ElektrA)
• Scope more than 20.000 institutes
• at German universities
• and research organizations
• Content- Name (german/english)
• - Address
• - Hierarchical information
• - Disciplinary classification
• - Type of facility
• - WWW-Link and others
• Quality-Assurance
• a.) data are productive
  
• (e.g. db-based mailing)
• b.) reg. QS-processes
• by a central unit of the admin.

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Research Explorer Single Item
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The DFG-Funding-Ranking

• Idea
• To give information about research activity of
  German universities and other research bodies
• To inform about the disciplinary research profile
  of these institutions and of the regions they
  are active
• To inform about networks in science
• History
• First Ranking in 1997
• (database only DFG-funded money)
• as a reaction to a demand of the ten biggest
  German universities (members of DFG)
• Second Ranking in 2000
• (new regional aggregation of data)
• Third Ranking in 2003 (new networks in science,
  several other indicators)
• Fourth Ranking (Sep. 2006) (new more indicators,
  detailed inf. on research areas)

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Visitors Statistics www.dfg.de (1.7.2003 to
20.6.2004)
Response to the Funding Ranking
Highly publicised in mass media large echo in
the scientific community

• english version http//www.dfg.de/en/ranking/

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Topics

• Introduction
• Information Management at the German Research
  Foundation
• Products related to the DFGs CRIS
• Further developments

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Conclusions I

• Current situation with respect to the use of
  DFGs CRIS-System
• Good progress with respect to quantitative and
  qualitative information about DFG-grants but
• scarce information about the process as well as
  about the results and success of DFG funded
  research and
• No working unit within or outside the DFG, which
  could satisfy the described needs in an
  appropriate way.
• With respect to actors outside DFG
• Low co-operation between different producers and
  users of research information
• Large difficulty to link information from
  different sources due to missing standards
• Absence of a central network-point that offers
  and coordinates appropriate services

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Solution
Establishment of a scientific facility, which
supports the DFG and other actors involved in
science policy with above described services for
the purpose of programme and research planning as
well as a service of information to the general
public. ? DFG-Foundation of the Institute
for Research Information and Quality Assurance
(IFQ) (Oct. 2005)
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Examples of Future Service of the IFQ

• Qualifying information (who is doing research
  with whom and with which results?) ( General
  Research Information)
• Quantifying information (Input- and output-data
  on DFG-funded projects) (monitoring/evaluation)

• E.g. establishment of an information system
  that publishes the final reports of
  DFG-funded projects.

• Empirical based information about process and
  results of DFG-funded projects (e.g. career of
  DFG-Fellows, Internationality and
  Interdisciplinarity of projects,
  output(publications, patents and others)).

for details see (german only)
www.forschungsinfo.de
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Conclusions II

• Today most funding agencies run CRIS-systems

II. Most of the builders (and users) of
these systems are not aware of the
possibilities their systems offer for
more-than-internal-services

• Try to use your CRIS in more than one way the
  more products
• you offer the better is the quality of your CRIS
  (the data within)!

IV. Get into contact to other CRIS-providers
Exchange Data!
V. Even more effectivness is possible by
working together (as the following presentation
will show)!
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Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft
Thank you for your attention!
...and remember without
data you are just another person with an opinion!
Dr. Juergen Guedler, Department of Information
Management, juergen.guedler_at_dfg.de
More Infos at www.dfg.de/