RIF-CS Vocabularies Updates
2025
Addition to Activity type
investment
Addition to Activity Relation Type (Activity)
isInvestedBy
Driver: Represent an investment with an Activity object, and indicate what Collections have been funded by that investment.
2022
Addition of ROR as new Identifier type
Components affected:
identifer/@type
relatedInfo/identifier/@type
citationInfo/citationMetadata/identifier/@type
Driver: Research Organization Registry (ROR) identifier is becoming more frequently used in linking research data with related organisations. However, because it is not listed as identifier types in RIF-CS they have no special display in Research Data Australia (i.e. resolvable link). Further, RDA contributors who use ROR have no guidance as to how to include it in RIF-CS records they contribute to RDA.
Usage: Optional. Provide the relevant identifier type when describing or linking to research data, activity, people or organisation within RDA. RDA contributors who use ROR as an identifier will be guided in how these are included in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
2021
Addition of isVersionOf/hasVersion as relation type
hasVersion: versioned by the related collection
isVersionOf: is a version of the related collection
Components affected:
relatedInfo/relation/@type
Driver: The addition of isVersionOf/has Version as relation type will allow publishers to describe the relationship to or availability of the different versions of the dataset by providing either:
the DOI for the version being related/linked to (identifier with type = doi) where the DOI resolves to it’s landing page in the organisation's repository
the URL of the landing page or the actual version of the dataset (identifier type=url)
Usage: Optional. Provide the relevant relation type when describing or linking to research data to a version of the dataset in the organisation's repository. RDA contributors who use isVersionOf/hasVersion as relationship will be guided in how these are included in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
Addition of CC0 as licence type in the license element
CCO: No Rights Reserved
Components affected:
rights/licence/@type
Driver: Adding CC0 as a licence type, although not a licence per se, allows publishers to specify that the resource imposes no obligations, prohibitions or permissions nor a requirement to include an explicit attribution.
Usage: Optional. Provide the relevant identifier type when describing or linking to research data, activity, people or organisation within RDA. RDA contributors who use CC0 as a licence type will be guided in how these are included in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
2018
No structural changes to the schema will be introduced with v1.6.3. Changes affect vocabulary terms only. All changes are optional. There are no backwards compatibility issues.
Changes from 1.6.2 to 1.6.3
Addition of ten new Service Types to the Vocabularies for Registry Schema
ESRI:ArcGIS:GPServer
ESRI:ArcGIS:ImageServer
ESRI:ArcGIS:MapServer
OGC:WCS
OGC:WFS
OGC:WMS
OGC:WMTS
OGC:WPS
OPeNDAP
THREDDS
Components affected:
<service/@type>
Driver: The addition of new Service Types to the Vocabularies provides new paths to discovery of services and collections and encourages consistency in their description.
Usage: Optional. Contributors will need to add the appropriate service type to their records if they wish for those records to be found using the Service Type (Service object) or Access Method (Collection object) filters in Research Data Australia.
Deprecation of Service Access Policy in favour of the use of the Access Rights element
Components affected:
<accessPolicy>
<accessRights>
Driver: The deprecation of Access Policy simplifies the schema and promotes consistency of approach to access rights description.
Usage: Optional. Contributors will need to add any Service Policy information to the Access Rights element if they wish for this information to display in Research Data Australia. (Access Policy does not currently display in Research Data Australia and very few Contributors have information in this element).
2017
Addition of IGSN, GRID, ScopusID, ISNI and RAiD as identifier types
scopusID: a unique author identifier provided by the Scopus publications database
Components affected:
identifer/@type
relatedInfo/identifier/@type
citationInfo/citationMetadata/identifier/@type
Driver: These five global identifier schemes – IGSN, ISNI, GRID, Scopus ID and RAiD – are becoming more frequently used in records describing and linking research data. However, because these are not listed as identifier types in RIF-CS they have no special display in Research Data Australia (i.e. resolvable link). Further, RDA contributors who use these identifiers have no guidance as to how to include them in RIF-CS records they contribute to RDA. As a result, these identifiers are either not being included in RIF-CS records or they are being included in the wrong element.
Usage: Optional. Provide the relevant identifier type when describing or linking to research data, activity or organisation within RDA. RDA contributors who use these identifier types will be guided in how these are included in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
Addition of PONT, SCOT, APT, PSYCHIT and ISO639 subject types
pont: Powerhouse Museum Object Name Thesaurus
scot: Schools Online Thesaurus
apt: Australian Pictorial Thesaurus
Components affected:
subject@type
Driver: The identified subjects have been used by Research Data Australia Contributors and appear in the RDA Registry. To promote consistent usage, it would be beneficial to formally add these to the vocabulary.
Usage: Optional. Provide the relevant subject type when describing or linking to research data or activity within RDA. RDA contributors who use these subject types will be guided in how these are included in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
Simplification of RIF-CS identifier types
consolidation of three existing Identifier Type vocabularies into a single vocabulary for Identifiers (Note: no Identifier Types will be lost in the merge)
<identifier/@type>
<relatedInfo/identifier/@type>
<citationInfo/citationMetadata/identifier/@type>
Driver: The RIF-CS elements, <relatedInfo/identifier>, <identifier> and <citationInfo/citationMetadata/identifier/>, have separately defined vocabularies for Identifier Type. These vocabularies, however, are substantially overlapping thus, may confuse users and contributors. Simplification and/or consolidation of these identifier types will make it easier to manage and maintain the RIF-CS vocabulary.
Usage: RDA contributors will be guided in how the identifier types are used in RIF-CS (see Content Providers Guide (copied - 2023-06-20)).
2015
1. Addition of new collection types: software, classificationScheme, publication
1a) software: one or more items that collectively represent a software product; including computer instructions (ranging in format from machine code to high-level programming languages); and associated non-executable items such as documentation.
Component affected: registryObject/collection/@type
Driver: Demonstrated demand from providers to publish software (of various types) as a first class research output.
Usage: Optional. This type should be used to describe software that supports research, including models and workflows. In some cases, the software may be required to reproduce a dataset. Use this type to publish and make discoverable software that may be downloaded, compiled, executed and instantiated. The aim is to enable such software to be reused and cited by others. Its scope may range from a single source file to multiple files constituting a complete software product.
1b) classificationScheme: a list or arrangement of terms used in a particular context eg. ontologies, thesauri.
Component affected: registryObject/collection/@type
Driver: To support the publication of controlled vocabularies and similar resources via Research Vocabularies Australia.
Usage: Optional. This type should be used to describe a research asset that is comprised of terms used in a particular context. Use this type to publish and make discoverable classification schemes such as controlled vocabularies, authority lists, ontologies and thesauri that may be reused by others.
1c) publication: scholarly material consisting mainly of written text eg journal publications, book chapters.
It is not intended that collection type="publication" be implemented in the ANDS Registry. It has been added to the list of types to support business requirements of other systems that use RIF-CS. In the ANDS Registry, providers should continue to use relatedInfo type="publication" to describe a publication related to a collection.
2. Addition of relatedInfo type: provenance
provenance: information about how the data being described was derived or produced; including events (creation, assemble, annotate, and transform etc.), when and where an event happened, which instruments or software were used and who was involved.
Component affected: registryObject/collection/relatedInfo/@type
Driver: RIF-CS currently has some capacity to encode provenance information for a collection object; for example, description:type="lineage" as well as related service and party objects. However, some providers have fine-grained provenance information that can't be transformed into a RIF-CS record. In other cases, they may not own the provenance information so are unable to describe all resources in a provenance chain. In addition, a small number of data providers have set up a provenance access and query service to generate a provenance report on the fly. The addition of type= "provenance" to the relatedInfo suggested vocabulary is intended to support these use cases.
Usage: Optional. Use this type to point to provenance information located outside the ANDS Registry using a URI.
3. Addition of service type: store
store: provides infrastructure for the storage of a data object
Component affected: registryObject/service/@type
Driver: RDS Nodes provide storage services for an increasing number of collections described in RDA. However, the RDS Nodes were difficult to describe in RIF-CS as the existing Service types did not provide a good fit for describing services that provide data storage infrastructure.
Usage: Optional. With the introduction of this type, RDS Nodes and other data storage infrastructure providers can be described as a Service and related to collection descriptions in RDA.
4. Addition of identifier type: fundref
fundref: funder unique identifier assigned by CrossRef and maintained in the global FundRef registry
Component affected: registryObject/party/identifier/@type
Driver: FundRef identifiers are an effective means for identifying funding bodies in RDA. It is the same funder identifier used by major journal publishers. ANDS is encouraging providers to include funder and grant information when describing research outputs. ANDS will create Party records for all Australian funders in the FundRef taxonomy thereby enabling providers to easily make connections in RDA between funders and the outputs that result from the research they fund.
Usage: Optional. Provide the FundRef identifier to relate a collection description to the relevant funding body.
5. Amend accessRights type definitions: open, conditional, restricted
Component affected: registryObject/collection/rights/@type
Background
An optional vocabulary for accessRights was introduced with RIF-CS v1.6.0 (December 2014). Since then, a number of providers have reported difficulty implementing these in practice as the distinction between access and license was blurred.
With the implementation of RIF-CS v0.1.6.1, the definitions of accessRights types will change to provide greater clarity for providers and users of RDA. The updated definitions are as follows:
Open: Data is publicly accessible online
Conditional: Data is publicly accessible subject to certain conditions. For example:
a fee applies;
the data is only accessible at a specific physical location.
Restricted: Data access is limited. For example:
following an embargo period;
to a particular group of users;
where formal permission is granted.
Details of conditions and restrictions may be provided as a free text value in accessRights.
Usage: For clarity, it is preferred that providers use rights:type=licence to describe license conditions and use rights:accessRights:type=[vocab term] to describe access conditions.
6. Amend 'hasCollector' relation type definition
Component affected: registyObject/collection/relatedObject/relation/@type
Background
The current definition of the 'hasCollector' relation type was reported as being too vague to accurately describe the various relation types that may exist between a collection and related party. This can make it difficult to choose the most appropriate type and is also problematic for providers crosswalking to RIF-CS from other schema such as ISO19115 and EML where different party-collection types are defined.
With the implementation of RIF-CS v1.6.1, the definitions will change:
From:
hasCollector: has been aggregated by the related party
isCollectorOf: has aggregated the related collection
To:
hasCollector: has been collected, generated, created or aggregated by the related party
isCollectorOf: has collected, generated, created or aggregated the related collection
2014
Addition of 'gcmd' vocabulary term to subject/@type
Data providers will have the option to use Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) as a subject type when describing a collection.
There will be no impact on those organisations that choose not to use the new subject type. Optional, use as applicable.
Addition of 'PubMedID' vocabulary term to relatedInfo/identifier/@type
Data providers will have the option of providing a PubMedID identifier when describing publications using the relatedInfo element.
There will be no impact on those organisations that choose not to use the new identifier type. Optional, use as applicable.
Changes include:
addition of new location/address/electronic attribute @target to allow providers to specify a landing page and/or a download URL
addition of new location/address/electronic sub elements title, notes, mediaType and byteSize to allow providers to describe a download target
removal of location/address/electronic/@type vocabulary term 'wsdl'
addition of 'open', 'conditional' and 'restricted' vocabulary terms to rights/accessRights/@type to enable users to assess the 'openness' of the data collections described using RIF-CS
2013
Addition of 'nhmrc' identifier/@type to the existing types such as 'arc'
Addition of new relationship types for relatedInfo as a result of enabling publication and object linking using relatedInfo
2012
Additional Description Type vocabulary terms to support the development and display of Contributor Pages in Research Data Australia.
Addition of relatedInfo type 'metadata' to provide the ability to point to richer metadata formats used to describe the collection/party/service/activity.
Addition of licence type vocabulary to permit recording and display of licence types for collections.
2011
Addition of relatedInfo types 're-use metadata' and 'data quality metadata'
2010
The format for describing telephone and fax numbers will be simplified. The prefix 'tel:' will no longer be required, and 'voice' and 'fax' will be moved from the Electronic Address Type vocabulary to the Address Part Type vocabulary.
Implications for data providers: Existing content will need to be provided in the new format from June 2011.
For feedback or questions, please email services@ardc.edu.au.