GRAAL An Information System about Research Units JeanFranois

GRAAL, An Information System about Research Units Jean-François Desnos, Geneviève Gras, Béatrice Meier, Laurent Pilet Université Joseph Fourier, Université de Strasbourg, Clermont Université 1

GRAAL The aims of GRAAL is an application system designed to manage the french universities research labs § A reference for the administration of research § A tool for the laboratories (means, activities) § A communication vector with the government and national bodies § A datamart providing indicators to the president March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 2

GRAAL The project The GRAAL project is a cooperation which started in 2004 between the Universities of § Grenoble, § Clermont-Ferrand, § Strasbourg, § Lille USTL, § Nancy Henri Poincaré, § Paris Descartes. It’s presently distributed by AMUE and used by 44 universities in France. March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 3

GRAAL The project organization § Steering Committee: in charge of the strategy ; the presidents and directors of national bodies § Project committee: executes the strategic plan, allows the means, follows the planning of the project § Functional and operational teams: design and run the application. March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 4

GRAAL Functionalities of the application § Describes the structure of research : labs, clusters, teams, … § Information on people and their scientific activities, including international § Follow-up of the financial means § One database for one or several universities The following example shows the complexity of the structures March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 5

GRAAL Structure of research (example) Université Joseph Fourier INP Grenoble (university) CNRS INRIA (national research body) Physics & Maths Dept IT Department Federation IMAG Laboratory GRAVIR GRAphics, VIsion and Robotics IT doctoral school Engineering doctoral school March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 7 others laboratoires Team Motion and Animation Team Virtual Reality Team Computer Vision 6

GRAAL Integration in the university IS Students Web services Reference Data Bases Human Resources GRAAL University Data warehouse User Connection Authentification Portal of University (E-sup portail) March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy CAS LDAP directory 7

GRAAL One database for several universities Human Resources Students Data warehouse University … GRAAL Human Resources Students ENT Data warehouse (E-sup) University B Web services CAS ldap directory Students Human Resources Data warehouse University A March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 8

GRAAL Indicators § General information : type of research unit, associate universities, scientific labels, address, … § Personal : Researchers, Professors, Visiting scholars, Ph. D students, Post. Doc, staff § Finance : Needs, Means / team § Scientific production : articles, events, contracts, patents, associated private companies March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 9

GRAAL Exchanges § with the directory of research on institutional website or laboratory’s website (by Web services) § With the ministry : XML files tranfers for SIREDO statistics § With national open archiv systems HAL (by Web services) March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 10

GRAAL Technology § Full web: Java § Development : Web. Objects Framework , Eclipse IDE (WOLips plugins) § Deployment : Web. Objects / Tomcat § Oracle 9 i et 10 g databases § Integrated in the university IS § In the digital work environment (fr. ENT) § CAS, LDAP directory authentication § Synchronous access to reference databases : Student system, HR March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 11

GRAAL Exchanges between GRAAL and open archive system HAL Publications by laboratory harvesting read validation write Publications by laboratory and author GRAAL March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy submit write HAL 12

GRAAL Perspectives for new versions ▶ Structures: adapt to new research structures § In France, a number of universities are merging in PRES (“Pôle de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur”) § “Teams”, subdivisions of a laboratory, are getting attributes of a laboratory. ▶ Exchanges § With open archives projects (by Web services) § With a national research skills database (by XML files transfers) ▶ Upgrade of the reporting capacities (with Business Objects) ▶ Technology: rewrite the software? Cooperate with CNRS? Access other Databases? (than Oracle) March 19 th 2010 Bologna, Italy 13