Management and Sharing of Research Information through ResearchNet

Jian Ma

Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

Current research information systems (CRISs) have been developed and used for management of research projects and their related information in government funding agencies and research institutions. However CRISs are developed in isolation and they can hardly exchange information automatically through electronic means.

This paper reports the design and implementation of the ResearchNet (http://researchnet.org) for efficient management, sharing and exchange of research information over the Internet. Web Services technology has been used for the architecture design of the ResearchNet. Internet-based Science Information System (ISIS: http://isis.nsfc.gov.cn) at the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Innovation and Technology Fund Administrative System (ITFAS: http://itf.gov.hk) at the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong SAR Government are used as test beds for sharing and exchange of R&D project information. The experimental results show that ResearchNet can greatly simplify the processes for participating organizations to set up the access rights and exchange research information efficiently over the Internet.