CODATA TG OT-ViRARe

The Open Tools and Visitation Frameworks for Global Research Assessment Reform OT-ViRARe is an international Task Group of the Committee on Data (CODATA) of the International Science Council (ISC).

OT-ViRARe aims to move beyond traditional publication-centric and metric-driven evaluation systems by developing transparent, equitable, and AI-ready approaches that recognize the full diversity of research contributions across disciplines, institutions, projects, and regions.

Why OT-ViRARe?

Research assessment systems worldwide continue to rely heavily on journal-based metrics and citation indicators. While useful in some contexts, these measures often fail to capture:

• Open Science contributions
• Research data and software outputs
• Interdisciplinary collaboration
• Community engagement and societal impact
• FAIR data practices
• Contributions from the Global South

OT-ViRARe addresses these challenges by integrating semantic technologies, knowledge graphs, AI-assisted analysis, and data visitation approaches to support more inclusive and context-aware assessment frameworks.

This initiative builds upon experiences gained through the #semanticClimate project, extending semantic AI approaches beyond climate-related documents to support assessment of:

• Research organizations
• Research projects
• Scientific themes
• Research infrastructures
• Open Science activities

Our Vision

To build a global ecosystem of open, interoperable, and trustworthy tools that enable responsible research assessment while respecting data sovereignty, privacy, and local contexts.

Planned Activities and Outputs (2025–2027)

2025

• Core Team Establishment
• ECR Engagement

2026

• Release of ORAT v1.0 (Open Research Assessment Toolkit)
• Guidelines for visitation-enabled responsible research assessment
• Launch of TG Working Groups on metadata/ontologies, policy frameworks, and capacity-building
• Metadata & Ontology Toolkit for multilingual, culturally sensitive, visitation-based semantic enrichment
• Regional workshops across Asia, Africa, and Latin America

2026

• OT-ViRARe White Paper
• Joint symposium with CODATA, RDA, GOSC, DSJ and national committees on integrating visitation into RRA
• Final report and open repositories of tools, schemas, demonstrators, training materials
• Presentation of outputs to the CODATA Community

GitHub repository

List of workshops

January 16, 2026

• Title : BIF-DD-2026 | 13th Workshop on Bioinformatics and Drug Design | Read about event

  • organizes hands-on session on AI for Literature Reviews (Case Study: Drug Discovery)

• Blog

January 28, 2026

• Title : BRIC-NIPGR & CODATA INDIA Hands-on Workshop FAIR and Reproducible Structural Biology | Read about event

• Blog

March 24-27, 2026

• Title : CODATA India Workshop on Liberation, Extraction & Reuse of Data | Read about event

• Blog