VIVO joins CASRAI in advancing research interoperability

The Leaders of the VIVO Project team (VIVO) and the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) are today announcing a collaboration to advance a common global approach to research interoperability.

VIVO is an open source ontology and software system designed at Cornell University for researchers and used in many universities in the USA that has attracted interest more widely internationally.  It is based on the Semantic Web / Linked Open Data concept.  Recent development has been supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U24 RR029822, through a consortium of universities led by the University of Florida and including Cornell University, Indiana University, Ponce School of Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, and Weill Cornell Medical College.

CASRAI is a non-profit standards development organization. CASRAI is an international community of leading research funders and institutions collaborating to ensure seamless interoperability of research information. They collectively develop and maintain a common data dictionary and advance best practices for data exchange and reuse between research teams, institutions, and funding agencies throughout the entire life-cycle of research activity.

“The VIVO community recognizes the need for broader input into the VIVO ontology from the academic, government, and private sectors, within the U.S. and internationally,” says Jon Corson-Rikert, the VIVO Development Lead and member of the VIVO Ontology Team. “CASRAI offers a uniquely independent and technology-neutral process for assembling, reviewing, and recommending common data elements and their interrelationships, going beyond people to other key research activities and resources.  We look forward to joining the CASRAI dictionary process and helping to launch a U.S. component of this important effort.”

“Research interoperability at a global scale is a puzzle with many pieces,” says David Baker, CASRAI Executive Director, “The CASRAI dictionary is just one piece of that puzzle. Implementations like VIVO are another crucial piece. VIVO makes it possible to integrate data about researchers between multiple institutions. A common international language for research information combined with a diverse network of systems that speak this language puts seamless research interoperability within our reach.”

The VIVO and CASRAI collaboration will focus on:

• advancing a common global approach to interoperability within the US research community,
• advancing ontology-centric views of the CASRAI dictionary,
• advancing the Semantic Web as a medium for global research information sharing.

This partnership will further facilitate a diverse collection of activities associated with the VIVO project, across federal agencies, professional societies, data providers, and a variety of efforts with the Semantic Web and ontology development communities. The VIVO/CASRAI collaboration to advance a common approach to research interoperability will also serve to enhance the efforts at VIVO implementations across the United States and around the world as scholars look to share their research efforts and promote their expertise. Significant partners of the VIVO project include: the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), the ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) Initiative, the American Psychological Association and the Publish Trust Project, Symplectic Limited, Wellspring Worldwide, and the Australian-based ANDS VIVO project, a collaboration of the University of Melbourne, Queensland University of Technology, and Griffith University. The cooperation will strengthen the VIVO team‚ augment VIVO and CASRAI’s international links and provide many opportunities for joint developments to the benefit of the worldwide research community.

For more information contact:

VIVO contact:

Jon Corson-Rikert
Head, Information Technology Services
201 Albert R. Mann Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
607 255-4608
jc55 at cornell.edu

CASRAI contact:
David Baker
Executive Director, CASRAI
200 – 440 Laurier Ave. W
Ottawa ON  K1R7X6
Desk: 613-832-0304
dbaker at casrai.org