NII concluded an international exchange agreement (MOU) with Center for Open Science (COS)

National Institute of Informatics (NII) is developing a research data management (RDM) platform(*1), “GakuNin RDM,” in Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform (RCOS, Director: Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division, NII, Professor Kazutsuna Yamaji). GakuNin RDM is expected to bring innovation through appropriate share and management of research data. Center for Open Science (COS) is a non-profit organization that aims at promoting open science globally and has been developing and providing research data infrastructure called Open Science Framework (OSF) since 2013. OSF is open-source software for RDM service with high scalability and operability. NII adopted OSF technology for GakuNin RDM and equally conducted research and development services in collaboration with COS. In the future, NII hopes to develop GakuNin RDM suitable to the needs of Japanese universities and research institutions.

In addition to these technological developments, we will participate in educational activities needed to promote RDM thinking. COS develops and operates OSF and RDM training courses, and aims to incorporate such knowledge into educational activities of open science. As NII develops RDM training courses in collaboration with Japanese university libraries, both institutions share knowledge and experience. Also, NII and COS collaborate to promote international open science.

NII is pursuing MOUs with overseas universities and research institutions to promote international exchange systematically and actively. Such agreements have been concluded with 30 countries and regions in Asia, America, Europe, Oceania, and Africa. In addition to MOUs related to research cooperation, MOUs related to business cooperation have been concluded with nine organizations in five countries and regions (*2).

GakuNin RDM is a web service for managing research data at a closed stage in the research process. This service can store and manage research data that is produced from research projects, and it has a data-sharing function. Also, it has a feature to prevent unauthorized tampering of research data by using a research-trail recording function. The service will be provided to academic institutions in Japan from the latter half of FY2020.

In April 2017, NII opened RCOS and started building the research data infrastructure NII Research Data Cloud (NII RDC). RCOS supports open science activities at universities and research institutions. NII RDC is an IT infrastructure for managing, publishing, and searching research data and related materials generated in the process of academic research activities. The research data management platform (GakuNin RDM), the publication platform (WEKO3), and the discovery platform (CiNii Research) are independent of each other. The MOU with COS addresses the research and development of RDM infrastructure explicitly.

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(*1) Research data management platform: A platform for individual researchers or research groups to manage research data and related materials during research project implementation.

(*2) MOU contractor: For details of the contractor, please refer to the “International Exchange Agreement (MOU) Signing Status” page on the NII official website. (http://www.nii.ac.jp/en/about/international/mou/)

About the National Institute of Informatics (NII)

NII is Japan’s only academic research institute dedicated to the new discipline of informatics. Its mission is to “create future value” in informatics. NII conducts both long-term basic research and practical research aimed at solving social problems in a wide range of informatics research fields–from fundamental theories to the latest topics, such as artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and information security.

Also, as an inter-university research institute, NII builds and operates academic information infrastructure essential for the research and educational activities of the entire academic community, including the Science Information Network (SINET5), as well as developing services such as provision of academic content and service platforms.