RIF-CS Changes

ARDC has committed to restrict structural updates of RIF-CS to a single update each year. Additions to the vocabulary can happen at any time. This is because each structural change imposes a cost on data providers.

In 2011, a governance committee known as the RIF-CS Advisory Board (RAB) was formed to provide an opportunity for interested stakeholders to influence changes to the RIF-CS Schema. Changes to the RIF-CS Schema that have been endorsed by the RIF-CS Advisory Board go through the ARDC Change Management Process.  In 2020, the RAB became inactive and changes to the schema are now approved via the ARDC's Change Managemeent  process.

For the latest list of RIF-CS changes, visit the RIF-CS Schema Updates page.

The vocabulary list (RIF-CS Controlled Vocabulary) for use in RDA is not closed. Rather, you can choose to use your own types if none of those in the vocabulary fits your data. These are called 'user-defined types' and are accepted by the system without affecting your record.

However, because consistency in types enables some deep search techniques and in some cases, enriched display in Research Data Australia, it is good practice to use the existing types where possible.

If you think your user-defined vocabulary would be useful for others and should be included in the ARDC vocabulary list, please email services@ardc.edu.au. Your suggestion will be considered by the RIF-CS Advisory Board (RAB) as part of the ARDC Change Management process.

All RIF-CS related changes are reviewed by the RIF-CS Advisory Board (RAB). If you have any recommended change, please email it services@ardc.edu.au using the RAB change request template.

ARDC will review your request  and will contact you for additional information, if we need it. We may also ask you to use the standard RIF-CS change template for submission to the RAB.