In the summer, Russian scientists (mostly young so far) encountered the KIAS system (kias.rfbr.ru). Now applications for RFBR grants must be submitted through it, and not through the usual “Grant Express”, which, in the opinion of many scientists, has either been perfected, or they have become sufficiently accustomed to it that it begins to seem convenient. New system both unusual and, in many respects, extremely inconvenient. We will mainly touch on the most labor-intensive aspect, according to the responses of a number of colleagues - the system for entering publications.
It is completely unclear why, despite the existence of a huge number of available bibliographic systems (WoS, Scopus, NASA AdS, PubMed, Scholar Google and, of course, the domestic RSCI - aka eLibrary), as well as the usual popular formats (BibTeX), the KIAS system does not allow importing publications. This is surprising and annoying, while, according to available information, a lot of money was paid for the system developed by the Scientific Research Institute of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
For comparison, let’s say that the developers of the ISTINA system at Moscow State University were able to provide quite convenient import of publications from other bibliographic systems. This required only a short test with the participation of several volunteer scientists, but the result was much better.
So, it is impossible to import from bibliographic databases, so everyone enters their own publications. This is where the nightmare begins. Below we use responses from colleagues from different institutions. Searching for English names does not work at all, and this makes the work even more difficult, because the main scientific results published in English.
In Russian, searching for an author using a query like “last name + first name” does not work. Moreover, since only the first 50 are returned from the search results, it is not possible to select, for example, an author with the surname “Sergeev” (or “Petrov”, “Ivanov”, etc.); instead, the system returns more than 50 different “ Sergeevich" (patronymic).
It is not possible to view search results pages other than the first one. Moreover, the search generally works poorly. For example, the space after a word is not taken into account. Because of this, it is impossible, for example, to select the publication “RNA”, since the system displays the first 50 of 2400 results containing the combination of letters rna (despite the fact that there are tons of journals with the name “InterRNAtional...”).
You cannot edit information about the entered author, i.e. if you misspelled the name of his place of work, then you can only destroy the co-author and enter everything again or leave it with an error. By the way, many users simply do not enter the names of all co-authors, because they do not see the point in struggling with a list of dozens of people. A universal method is to use a single co-author “et al.” Some users enter information about the publication as best they can, confusing all the fields, lumping everything into one pile. All this leads to the appearance of duplicate articles with differently specified parameters.
The first author automatically becomes the person filling in, and there is no system for changing the order of authors (for example, the “move up”, “move down” arrows on the page for editing publication parameters). This (given the existing inadequacy in linking authors to publications), in addition to inconvenience during input, also leads to an incorrect order of authors, which is bad for expert assessments, since in some cases the order of authors is very significant. Due to the fact that the person filling in always comes first, articles appear with authorship like I. I. Ivanov, A. A. Petrov, I. I. Ivanov.
If the journal from which you want to enter an article is not yet in the system, then you must first register full information about it, and sometimes about the publisher as well. Even for the most famous, this, alas, was not done in advance. Accordingly, those who started working first entered information even about, say, journals in the Physical Review series. In general, those who worked in the system even at the stage of the “mol_a” grant were horrified by its quality. Some things seem to have been improved since then, but why release such a badly-improved product?
Sorting does not work in the list of articles: the links in the table header are not active. The setting for the number of publications displayed on one sheet is lost when leaving the page and returning to it. As a result, these two shortcomings make viewing the “My Publications” feed inconvenient.
There is no system for linking the author of a publication in English writing to a person who has an account in KIAS. In general, the system of linking an author to a publication needs significant improvement. Ideally, you need to make sure that in the list of authors you can link each of them to a person who has an account. Now this is possible only for oneself, i.e. for the author under whose name the user is currently logged in.
A separate form for each bibliographic reference in an article is simply beyond good and evil. If filling out such a form becomes mandatory, then perhaps it would be worth organizing a rally near the “Golden Brains”, where the RFBR lives?
Colleagues encountered an interesting curiosity when a student began registering with KlAS on the last day of submission. The system issued: “SNILS with this number has already been entered.” That is, apparently, someone made a typo, and the other person now cannot register. Another colleague immediately joked that this would be a good way to get rid of competitors.
There is confusion at MSU about which organization to apply for. Traditionally, many applications were submitted from departments (faculties and institutes), but now a response from the vice-rector has appeared, which states that Moscow State University should be declared as the parent organization. The curious thing is that Moscow State University is present in several guises in the KIAS system. We hope that applications will not be withdrawn from the competition due to the absurdities of the system.
Users also complain that the system sometimes “slows down”, that there are problems with the “place of work” section (the institute can appear under different names, none of which is often completely correct), and the application managers could not control this in a timely manner. Why, say, Hungary was awarded a separate point in the countries where co-authors work, and Italy falls into the “others” is a mystery. When trying to send a list of comments, some received emails from the address [email protected]. None of the respondents have yet received answers (or at least notifications of receipt).
Among the advantages, users note only the visual qualities of the interface, as well as the availability of help (which, however, also has complaints).
In the end, what do we have? Scientists spend a lot of time manually entering information that has long existed in different places in a convenient, accessible form. Why couldn’t it have been possible to at least import publications from the RSCI-eLibrary (not to mention more convenient systems and formats), since this system was financed and promoted as national pride? What the people who decided to transfer applications to the KIAS system and who developed this system were thinking is unclear. It seems that they certainly did not think about making the work of Russian scientists more efficient.
Prepared Sergey Popov
You can express your opinion about the KIAS system on the page
Completing an application in the KIAS RFBR system
https://kias. rfbr. ru/
1. Log in to the personal page of the project manager
2. Select My Projects and Invitations
3. Select Create (green button on the right)
4. Select Competition Code “a”
5. Select Create request
7. After completion of registration, submit an electronic version of the application to the Research Institute for verification
Form 1. Project data
1.1.1. Project name(in Russian, with capital letter, lowercase letters)
1.1.2. Project name(in English)
1.2.2. Area of knowledge(only one digital code)
(01) mathematics, mechanics and computer science;
(03) chemistry and materials sciences;
(04) biology and medical sciences;
(05) Earth Sciences;
(06) natural science research methods in the humanities;
(07) information and communication technologies and computing systems;
(08) fundamental principles of engineering sciences.
1.3.1. Scientific discipline - main code(according to classifier 2017 of the year) the code is indicated only for that section of the classifier in which, in the opinion of the authors, the main results of the project will be obtained
1.3.2. Scientific discipline – additional codes (according to classifier 2017 year, separated by a space) additional codes characterizing the subject of the project are indicated, no more than 3
1.4. Keywords(indicate individual words and phrases that most fully reflect the content of the project; no more than 15, in lowercase letters, separated by commas)
1.5. Annotation published on the Foundation's website(no more than 0.5 pages)
1.5.1. Does the project involve expeditions and/or field research?
1.6. Number of members of the scientific team(including the project manager, in numbers) NO more than 10 peopleALL project implementers must be registered in the RFBR KIAS system https://kias. rfbr. ru/
1.7. Deadlines (start year – end year) 1 year, 2 years, 3 years
1.8. Total funding requested for 2017, including funding for expeditions and/or field research (in rubles - in numbers, without spaces, periods and commas)
The amount of the grant for the implementation of the Project, which does not include an expedition and/or field research = 700,000 rubles.
Grant for the implementation of a Project that includes an expedition and/or field research = 700,000 rubles + the amount requested for the expedition and/or field research
Form 4. Contents of the Project
4.1. Purpose and objectives of fundamental research
4.2. Suggested methods and approaches (with an assessment of the degree of novelty)
4.3. Overall plan work for the entire duration of the project
4.3.1 Work plan for the first year of the Project, including proposed travel, purchases of equipment and components and distribution of performers for Project tasks
4.4. Expected scientific results for the entire duration of the Project(detailed description; the form of presentation should make it possible to conduct an examination of the results)
4.4.1. Expected scientific resultsfor the first year of the project (detailed description; the form of presentation should make it possible to conduct an examination of the results)
4.4.2 Relevance of results
4.4.3 Contribution to the development of this field of science
4.5. Current state research in this field of science, comparison of expected results with the world level (conduct an analysis of existing publications on the subject of the project)
4.6. The team’s existing scientific background for the proposed project: previously obtained results(with an assessment of the degree of originality), developed methods(with an assessment of the degree of novelty),
4.6.1 List of main (no more than 10) publications of the TEAM over the last 5 years (for each publication, provide a link on the Internet for expert access to the abstract or, if available, the full text)
4.7. Project Manager's experience in executing other projects and grants
4.7.1 List of main publications of the PROJECT MANAGER (no more than 10)(for each publication, provide a link on the Internet for expert access to the abstract or, if available, the full text)
Dear Colleagues,
KIAS - Corporate Information and Analytical System for insurance activities was created by the Insurance Laboratory based on the collective experience of the developers themselves, gained while working in large Russian insurance companies, as well as experience large number professionals of these companies in various areas of insurance activity. It is their keen interest in the development and Active participation in setting tasks allowed us to make KIAS what it is today.
During the development process, KIAS gradually evolved from a simple accounting system to a high-tech IT platform.
And if at the initial stage of the creation of CIAS the only task was set to at least somehow take into account all insurance contracts (centralization of accounting), then as the scope of implementation of the system expanded and the number of its users increased, more and more new tasks were set to transform the accounting system into a technological one. And what seemed like a great success yesterday became obvious, familiar and commonplace today. And we had to move on again. Everyone who walked this path with us probably remembers this well.
And, of course, the international Insurance Group Zurich made a huge contribution to the development of CIAS with its entry into the Russian market. Well, how else could one get CIAS audits from such reputable consulting giants as Accenture (2006) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (2006), the results of which are for a long time became a road map for medicines to bring CIAS to the requirements of world standards. And it was in the process of implementing this roadmap in KIAS that the Product Factory, Loss Segmentation, Functionality for Combating Insurance Fraud, and much, much more appeared.
But some roads end and others begin. Now this road map centralization of the functions of the insurance company throughout all its regional divisions. Therefore, KIAS is again on the path to improvement and this movement never stops. And it is possible only thanks to you, the End Users and simply all users of KIAS, for which the Insurance Laboratory team expresses its sincere appreciation and gratitude to you.
Sincerely,
Olesyuk Sergey Vladimirovich,
CEO