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DSpace-CRIS is the first free open-source extension of DSpace for the Research Data and Information Management ever developed. Differently from other (commercial) CRIS/RIMS , DSpace-CRIS has the institutional repository as its core component, providing high visibility on the web to all the collected information and objects. DSpace-CRIS broadens DSpace functionality and expands its data model while remaining aligned with its code base. 

DSpace-CRIS is built/maintained by 4Science.

DSpace-CRIS adopts/is compliant with international standards and practices to facilitate interoperability and data transfer:

- ORCID API v3 (complete compliance including pull/push of info for profiles, publications, projects)

- Signposting and ResourceSync (which implement COAR NGR Recommended Behaviors) - version 5 and 6

- OpenAIRE Guidelines for Literature Repository Managers v4, for Data Archives, for CRIS Managers v1.1.1 (based on CERIF)

- PlanS (by Coalition S)

- FAIR principles

The main characteristic of DSpace-CRIS is its flexible data model, which allows you to collect and manage research data and information typical of a CRIS system, to define entities and attributes with their reciprocal links. If you would just want to enhance the management of authors, provide name variants and IDs such as the ORCiD, exploit the varied ecosystem of persistent identifiers, link researchers to projects, awards, etc., DSpace-CRIS flexible data model can support this without aggravating the management burden of a normal institutional repository, while giving a great added value. Besides, it has useful features such as the collaboration network graph, aggregated (by researcher, by department) bibliometrics and statistics with graphic reporting, CVs and bibliographies, integration with ORCiD API v.3 and much more, you can explore them vie the menu items here on the left. 

Its flexibility allows to configure different data models and metadata schemas, providing the community with new and creative uses of DSpace, such as DSpace-GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) for the Cultural Heritage.

 What is a CRIS/RIMS?

A Current Research Information System (CRIS) - also called Research Information Management System (RIMS) – stores and manages data about research conducted at an institution. Its scope is to provide researchers, managers and administrators, funders and decision makers, with a solid knowledge of the research activities, their outputs and results to inform institutional strategies.

CRIS systems are also useful to evaluate research performance, expose results to find new funding opportunities, avoid duplication of activities, analyze trends, reference to full-text or multimedia scholarly publications, locate new contacts and identify new markets for products of research, disseminate research to support open knowledge.

The DSpace-CRIS’ Vision:  Publications are an important component of the research lifecycle: they create links between scholars  and they support research administrators in the measurement and decision making processes. However there are many other equally important entities in the research ecosystem that need description, reciprocal links and  tracking, such as projects, grants, patents, organization units, researcher profiles (people), etc. Integrating and contextualizing all these entities along with publications, creates great value for each of those entities in terms of visibility, discovery and the understanding of the complexity of the research domain. Nowadays, the most common definition for such integration is “Current Research Information System” (CRIS)

DSpace-CRIS enables the ingestion, storage, display and management of data and metadata for all the abovementioned research entities. This module produces a smooth integration between native DSpace items (publications) and other CRIS entities. All entities can then be linked to each other using autocomplete/lookup functions in the submission/edit phase and/or the inter-navigation in visualizations.

History and maintenance: Three DSpace Committers, Andrea Bollini (4Science) , Luigi Andrea Pascarelli (4Science) and Giuseppe Digilio (4Science), are also actively involved in the development and maintenance of DSpace-CRIS (originally developed at Cilea/Cineca as a project funded by the Hong Kong University). Besides their committment, a larger community is growing around DSpace-CRIS as a means to represent the research domain, see DSpace-CRIS Users.

Support options: see DSpace Support for free support, DSpace Service Providers for professional support.

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