The project team of VIVO Research Information Platform aims at developing a federated platform presenting information about researchers, their research and activities within Berlin University Alliance (BUA) using the VIVO Open Source Software. In the current development phase, the team is creating a demonstrator that illustrates the potential of the platform, especially for the presentation of interdisciplinary research.

At Texas A&M University (TAMU), a VIVO-based research information management (RIM) system has been implemented successfully. Since 2015, Bruce Herbert and his team have been running and further developing the RIM system SCHOLARS@TAMU. The platform serves to support the faculty building reputation, forming collaborations around inter- and transdisciplinary research projects as well as addressing societal grand challenges such as climate change.

In his presentation at VIVO Talks!, Bruce Herbert presented the VIVO use cases applied at Texas A&M, their strategy to build partnerships with the TAMU faculty as well as their RIM IT ecosystem. Here is the video of the entire presentation:

As mentioned in his presentation, Bruce Herbert and his team are currently working towards an interoperable RIM ecosystem within TAMU. In this process he highlights the use of persistent identifiers and applying a consistent ontology across the organization. Moreover, Bruce Herbert emphasizes the importance of an API automating data sharing as well as a consistent data governance enabling faculty to access and edit their data.

Bruce Herbert finishes his talk by briefly introducing the open source software VIVO and its continuously growing community.