Linkage Records

Without doubt the development of the link records was the area where institutions with highly developed, integrated systems were significantly benefited.

Of itself a publications database or institutional repository is of little help in developing linkage records unless it can be configured to maintain links with the HR system from which the staff table is derived.

Of the case study institutions Bangor did not provide linkage records, Plymouth and Bournemouth created the table manually and Birmingham and Queen's Belfast produced it automatically.

For those creating the table manually it was a time consuming and difficult task as every output had to have all authors correctly identified and linked to their HESA ID. For papers with multiple authors there had to be multiple passes through either the outputs table or staff table or both in order to insert all the correct linkages. Even at its simplest the process was arduous as every output had to be checked to establish if a given member of staff was an author i.e. the outputs table was completely checked at least once for every member of staff submitted and where appropriate link records created. Both 'manual' case study institutions believe that such a system and process is not sustainable in the longer term and in the case of Plymouth are actively working to put automated systems in place to manage the process. Institutions implementing a publications database or institutional repository once the format of the REF is finalised would be well advised to design their systems with the linkage record in mind.

The University of Birmingham and Queen's University Belfast both have well developed data warehouses where data from a variety of base systems (HR, RM, Student Record etc) were combined in a controlled manner to provide a richer source of information than was available from a single system. The linkages between staff and outputs were defined and automatically maintained within the warehouse and therefore required little or no effort to maintain. The motivation for the development of such warehouses was not wholly driven by RAE or REF considerations but also to support the internal management of the research process and research funding management. Additionally Queen's University uses the system to output records to 'Expertise Ireland'. Both these systems bring together data from a variety of proprietary or in-house systems and can manage and report on research at a variety of levels varying from individuals through departments to the university as a whole. For these institutions the production of the linkage table was simply a matter of writing a suitable routine to extract and format the required data.