The Research Information Centre (RIC) is a virtual research environment framework that is being jointly developed by Microsoft Research Connections and The British Library.

The source code and installer for the RIC Framework v.1.01 is available on CodePlex. However, this project is no longer being actively developed as much of the functionality has been superceded with the release of Microsoft SharePoint 2010. For current Virtual Research Environment efforts on SharePoint 2010, see the VRE Toolkit project page.
Built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the RIC Framework 1.01. extends the core SharePoint Server functionality to meet the needs of academic researchers who are engaged in collaborative research projects.
Through the Project Administration Centre, or PAC, domain-specific project site templates can be created, and specific content, tools, workflows, and services can be presented to the researchers in the context of a research project lifecycle. Individual project owners are provided with a rich set of building block tools, such as calendars, task lists, wikis, blogs, and surveys with which they can easily extend and customize the functionality of their project sites
For more information, watch the videos:
RIC Features
- Ability to create and manage:
- Project site templates (admin)
- Project sites and users (project owner)
- Customized Office SharePoint Server lists and libraries
- Federated search to domain-specific literature sources, and integration with Office SharePoint Server full-text indexing
- Citation formatting tool
- Bookmark and paper recommendations
- RSS feed integration
- Content tagging, rating, and annotations
- Search-as-you-type filtering of lists
- Pre-defined workflows for document approval
- Search, site action, and annotation histories
- Site archiving
Downloads
Documentation
Events
- eResearch Australia, Sydney, November 9–13, 2009
- Society of Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting, Baltimore, May 27–29, 2009
Partners
Publications
- VRE Landscape Study, JISC (2010)
- A Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for Biomedical Researchers, Barga, Andrews, Parastatidis (2007)
Related Resources
- Developing on SharePoint
- MSDN SharePoint Developer Center
- MSDN Best Practices with SharePoint Server
- Patterns & Practices SharePoint Guidance
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