NARCIS: research information services on a national scale

Abstract

As a national aggregator, NARCIS contains the scientific output of 27 institutional OAI-PMH repositories (IRs), with publications and descriptions of research data (datasets) from the Dutch universities, the Academy (KNAW), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the institute for Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS, http://www.dans.knaw.nl) and other research institutes. NARCIS also contains information from the Current Research Information Systems (CRISs) in the Netherlands on research, researchers (expertise) and research organisations. The data from the IRs and the CRISs in NARCIS are interlinked by identifiers such as the Digital Author Identifier (DAI), a unique identifier assigned to each researcher in the Netherlands. The NARCIS Suite (National Academic Research and Collaborations Information System: http://www.narcis.nl) consists of three main products: the NARCIS Portal (HTTP), the NARCIS Index (SRU) and the NARCIS Repository (OAI-PMH). The NARCIS Portal makes the combined data searchable and available to the public at a national level. Meeting the requirements of modern information systems requires continual development and a good understanding of NARCIS portal visitors and their needs.