RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS
CISRI seeks to sustain and enrich the information industry with new discoveries and approaches. In order to support this goal, CISRI will provide a rich set of resources to facilitate information science research. Being located at the intersection of various academic, industry and public sectors, CISRI is in a unique position to offer research perspectives, new and developing technologies and field data to which researchers embedded in particular sectors may not have been otherwise exposed. By bringing together a diverse range of knowledge, connections and organizations, CISRI aims to play a leading role in supporting new information science research.

CISRI can provide researchers with physical support in the form of office space access, IT hardware and software (including computers and servers), as well as proprietary software produced by Cogniva. Through its relationship with its partners and contributors, CISRI can also provide the following assistance for information science researchers:

FINANCING
CISRI aims to help participating researchers manage financial constraints. Through CISRI, researchers of information science may receive funding through a variety of grants, contracts, and other means. On a selective basis, financing will be available for individual researchers, focused research projects and long-term research projects.

Individual researchers may be funded through CISRI by organizations or individuals who seek to investigate a particular topic. Interested parties can contact the Institute, which will then act as a liaison between them and interested CISRI researchers.

CISRI can also help students seeking financial assistance for their projects by connecting them with available research grants. CISRI members already have—and seek to build on—a rich history of obtaining financing for research, including grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the National Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

COLLABORATION
CISRI seeks to be a premier centre for collaborative information science research. To this end, the Institute will develop and maintain a diverse network of information science researchers and industry contacts with access to resources and knowledge that will enhance its research scope and capacity. This will not only allow CISRI to provide leadership in information science research, but will also make the Institute a centre for communication between researchers from external organizations that seek to share complimentary research findings and expertise.

CISRI’s three research streams are unique but interrelated enough that they all stand to benefit from collaborative research. The Institute will encourage and facilitate this information and research-sharing by providing a formalized, communicative structure that utilizes collaborative tools, including wikis, research blogs and contact networks.

This network will be further supported by a range of research community events. An annual conference for CISRI’s three research streams will help keep the different groups in close contact and facilitate information and contact-sharing. Workshops will be held periodically in which researchers can engage in skill-sharing seminars. This will enhance each group’s research capacity while helping translate abstract concepts in information science into concrete skill sets—thereby fulfilling CISRI’s goal of bridging the gap between theoretical research and pragmatic application.

Interdisciplinary panel discussions will also be held on a regular basis to further connect researchers from different streams and facilitate information-sharing. Their frequent and informal nature will allow different research bodies to interact and share findings in a formalized venue with a minimum of strategic planning and overhead cost.

DATA SETS AND FIELD ACCESS
CISRI’s connection with Cogniva Information Solutions provides participating researchers with a wide array of information and analytical tools, including unique datasets and field access opportunities to which they might not otherwise be exposed. Since Cogniva is actively engaged in information management projects with large organizations and contributes data to CISRI, researchers can access many Cogniva-affiliated datasets, including detailed activity and organizational data.