Is there any (specific) user for this CRIS? Benedetto Lepori and Lorenzo Cantoni Facoltà di Scienze...

Is there any (specific)user for this CRIS?

Benedetto Lepori and Lorenzo Cantoni

Facoltà di Scienze della comunicazione

Università della Svizzera italiana

Lugano, Switzerland

Kassel, CRIS2002, 31 August 2002Lepori & Cantoni, Is there any user for this CRIS? 2

Content of the presentation

Some reflections on• the relationships of CRIS with the information providers

and with their users• how CRIS could address the user needs/interests• structural consequences of this issue

• based on an analysis of the Swiss case


Main thesis

• to fulfil their function and to find support CRIS have to target the needs of specific user groups

– there are specific structural/institutional problems which may hinder CRIS to do that

• how do CRIS target the information needs of specific user groups?– what is user targeting?

– what means user targeting on the Internet?

– why it is important (in general and for CRIS)?

– how do CRIS address this issue?


Some definitions

• you can look at information from three main points of view:– syntactic: information is well formed according to the linguistic

code– semantic: information is meaningful with respect to the world– pragmatic: information is relevant for a specific user

• the pragmatic significance of the information:– refers to the life/activity/beahviour of its users– is specific to different users– gives users a much more active role


Consequences

• an information item is relevant or irrelevant according to its receiver– as the public becomes larger relevant information becomes more

limited to basic elements

• to publish relevant information you must:– have defined your target public and know its needs– select/write your information according to these needs– get in touch exactly with the concerned public


Relevance and CRIS

• relevance is a central issue for CRIS: research information should improve the quality and the effectiveness of the research activities (e.g., by avoiding duplications of efforts)

• but until now CRIS where mostly concerned about– syntax of the information (data structure)– semantics of the information (metadata, semantic descriptors, thesauri

etc.)• little concern about the relevance of the available information

– CRIS information is not exploited enough– there may be a legitimacy problem towards politics

• Internet makes this issue more important because of loss of monopoly position– costs to gather, publish and access information are drastically reduced


The impact of the Internet

• apparently Internet creates an arena for information:– very little hierarchy– information is available to everybody– targeting is difficultthus Internet communication was mainly concerned with syntactical and semantic

properties of the information

• but it is rapidly moving towards a more structured space:– tools to assess the relevance of the information (e.g. links, search engines)– users develop a clear hierarchy of sources

• relevance becomes a central issue:– there is too much (redundant) information available– users can easily switch between different sources– the are strong selective effects


Some examples from Switzerland

• case study:– how existing CRIS systems in Switzerland tried to address the

needs of users groups

• there is no national CRIS system in Switzerland:– information is fragmented according to the institutions of science

policy and to the universities

• look at some examples:– SNSF: project database– FOES: directory of european projects– ARAMIS– swiss-science


1. Project database of the SNSF


2. European projects (FOES)


Comments

• information content is basically that of the annual report of the institutions– there is no attempt to rewrite the information to a specific public– scope of the information is defined by institutional limits

• information service obeys to a general duty of the institution:– to inform on how public money is spent– based on the function of the institution (e.g. to distribute grants)– there is no specific target group


ARAMIS

• the attempt to build a national CRIS– gathering the information on research projects from all bodies

(SNF, FOES, CTI...)– putting the information in a standard format

• only partially successful– coverage at the moment very incomplete– oriented rather towards management of research rather than to

publicly available information

• who should be the users– finding real users is quite difficult


swiss-science

• a portal to the science and university policy in Switzerland– managed by a private company– supported by the state and by sponsors

• there is a clear market orientation– public = people interested to “general” information on science and

university (civilian servants, politicians, university staff...)– information is gathered from different sources, selected and

rewritten according to the interests of the target public– financing depends on the impact


Two basic models

• “corporate-oriented” CRIS:– bound to a specific information provider– information contents and formats defined mostly from the

needs/organisation of the provider– a “generic” public– financing justified from a public mission

• “user-oriented” CRIS– defined from a specific user-group– information content/format suit user groups– collecting information form different sources– financing justified by impact/relevance


In general

• CRIS are subject to two quite different forces:– from the information providers– from the different user groups

• it is very difficult to reconcile these needs in a single service– for reasons of institutional culture and interests– because addressing generic and specific public is very different– look at the example of CORDIS

• a two-layer structure is able to address this issue much better


Information provider




User group

User group

User group

User group

CRIS

CRIS

CRIS

CRIS

CRIS


Conclusions

• the importance of structural forces in the evolution of CRIS:– we should be aware of institutional constraints/cultures behind content and

technical choices

• the importance of the diversity– no single system can answer to all (providers and users) needs

• it is very difficult to have large publics

– there is room for different institutional/organisational models:

• this implies diversity in contents and structure

• the need of interfaces/translation mechanisms:– adapt information to specific publics

– pragmatics is irreducible to semantics

The universal CRIScould well be the

end of CRIS

Is there any (specific) user for this CRIS? Benedetto Lepori and Lorenzo Cantoni Facoltà di Scienze...

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