SIGMA participated in the 10th annual VIVO conference that took place from September 4 to 6 in the city of Podgorica (Montenegro).
This is the first time that the conference is held outside the United States, since it took advantage of the various initiatives that VIVO is developing around Europe.
The conference was attended by euroCRIS as a European Partner. EuroCRIS is a non-profit association that promotes collaboration within the research information community and interoperability through CERIF.
At the meeting, an interesting workshop organized by VIVO-euroCRIS and SIGMA was held, where the history of European CRIS (research systems) was explained, and the differences and similarities between CRIS (European) and RIMs were analysed (American research systems), concluding that there are not so many differences and they are close enough to collaborate and work together, and this is where VIVO and the CERIF standards are key pieces.
Furthermore, SIGMA explained how to load VIVO information automatically and an initiative to be loaded using the CERIF standard. There were also some European initiatives to use VIVO, using a CRIS or loading information from a CRIS.
In the afternoon, there were a VIVO board meeting (leadership group) where SIGMA participates. New task forces were voted there and interesting initiatives were defined apart from other debates planned in the agenda.
SIGMA presented at the conference our experience with VIVO and the project to use CERIF in the loading of information. There were other very interesting presentations, such as a new VIVO frontend, more modern and responsive, a project made by 5 relevant American universities, a presentation on linked data, or another exhibition on the use of VIVO outside a University by Smithsonian Museum Institution.
This makes VIVO look like an emerging product in Europe with great potential. Without any doubt, it was a great conference full of very interesting presentations for the community.
