“CiNii Research Pre-version” is released

“CiNii Research Pre-version (link: https://cir.nii.ac.jp/)” has been released as the pre-release version of an integrated platform that allows you to search for research resources in a wide range of fields (Figure1). It has been developed by the Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform (RCOS, Center Director: YAMAJI Kazutsuna, Professor, NII Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division) of the National Institute of Informatics (NII, Director General: KITSUREGAWA Masaru, Tokyo, Japan). The service offers cross-sectional search for “research resources” such as research data published by universities and research institutes on their institutional repositories, data on academic papers, bibliographic information, and information on research projects. It employs informatics methods and integrates internal data using identifiers such as DOIs, creating an environment where users can quickly and seamlessly access various resources.

CiNii Research Pre-Version?https://cir.nii.ac.jp/
released at 10:00 on Friday, 6 November 2020, JST

The “pre-version” released in advance realized “easy access” that allows users to intuitively access to more than 20 million research resources*1, its main content, from a simple interface (Figure2). In this service, related research resources are linked together using the unit of search data “entity”*2, making it possible to perform “deep search” that collects research data one after another. The system also searches for research data, which is increasingly made open and utilized in recent years, regardless of the field; therefore, it is expected that it will contribute to the field of data-driven science and interdisciplinary research. We aim to provide a service that can be used by many people, including researchers searching for information on research, librarians handling bibliography and academic information, and persons in charge of institutions conducting academic research.
This service is still under development for production release; thus, it is a preliminary release to test the operations for actual operation. We are planning to add more functions and data and upgrade internal data, and then release it into production after next year.

Comment from YAMAJI Kazutsuna, Center Director of Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform, the National Institute of Informatics (NII):
“This discovery platform plays one of the essential components in the NII Research Data Cloud (NII RDC)*3. Similar to the progress of open science, the research environment also has to be evolved continuously. Our big challenge is to realize the short cycle of development (Dev) and operations (Ops) to mature the NII RDC. From this perspective, the CiNii Research pre-release means that it just stands at the start line to realize our concept. It is our great pleasure to reflect on your experience and voice for our future development. Let’s think together with us about what is your deep search.”

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About the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS)

ROIS is a parent organization of four national institutes (National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Informatics, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and National Institute of Genetics) and the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research. It is ROIS’s mission to promote integrated, cutting-edge research that goes beyond the barriers of these institutions, in addition to facilitating their research activities, as members of inter-university research institutes.

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, and information security.

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) as well as developing services such as those that enable the provision of academic content and service platforms.
https://www.nii.ac.jp/en/