Justus service now in use in all universities of applied sciences

Justus service now in use in all universities of applied sciences

Justus – Publication Information Reporting Service is already used by 32 Finnish organizations. The most recent ones to join are Vaasa University of Applied Sciences and Lapland University of Applied Sciences at the end of 2020. That means that the service developed and maintained by CSC is now available to all Finnish universities of applied sciences. Our customers also include seven research institutes and the National Defence College.

Justus was introduced in 2017 to serve, in particular, organizations that do not have their own research data system. Its use has increased steadily. In 2020, the service had nearly three thousand active users, and nearly 15,000 publications were stored through the service.

– We aim to constantly develop Justus based on user feedback, and it is great that the service has been useful to such an extensive user base, says Hanna-Mari Puuska, Development Manager at CSC. 

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Users can enter the details of their research publications in the Justus service, and this information can be browsed in the Research.fi portal and the Juuli portal. Justus also supports open access publishing because universities of applied sciences can parallel publish the full text of their publications in the Open Repository Theseus via Justus. Publication data stored in Justus is also used for the annual publication data collection of the Ministry of Education and Culture, calculating the funding model for higher education institutions, and Vipunen, the educational administration's reporting portal. The Academy of Finland also uses the publication data in its own funding system.

– We chose Justus for storing publication data because it is easy to use, inexpensive and can be deployed rapidly. Through Justus, the information is quickly transferred to national systems, such as the Juuli and Research.fi portal, and it is important for researchers to have the publication data immediately available in the Finnish Research Information Hub and the search portal of the Academy. We expect Justus to facilitate and speed up the storage and reporting of publication data. Justus also helps us to collect new information, for example on article processing charges (APC), says Heli Myllyniemi, Information Specialist at The Finnish Environment Institute.

In a survey of Justus’ customer organizations in 2020, all respondents said that they were either very pleased (73%) or rather pleased (27%) with the operation of the service. 

– Justus has been well received in the JAMK University of Applied Sciences. Practically all written publications and a significant part of art publications are reported directly in the Justus service. For us, the biggest benefit of Justus is that we no longer need to maintain our own forms in the organization, as the publication data fields required by the Ministry of Education and Culture are updated in real time in Justus. Our suggestions for development have been well received, and Justus becomes better year by year, says Riitta Ruuska, Information Specialist at the JAMK University of Applied Sciences.

Further information

Research.fi is a service offered by the Ministry of Education and Culture that collects and shares information on research conducted in Finland. The service was launched in June 2020 and will be developed in phases. At the moment, the service contains information on the Finnish research system, publications by Finnish organizations, projects funded by public and private research funders, and statistical information on the development of research resources and effectiveness.

Juuli portal contains the publications of Finnish universities and university hospitals starting from 2011, and the publications of universities of applied sciences starting from 2012. Publication data is also available from some of the State research institutes. Juuli is maintained by the National Library of Finland in collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and CSC.

Vipunen - Education Statistics Finland, the educational administration's reporting portal, contains extensive statistics on education and research in Finland. Publication statistics are published annually:  

JUSTUS - Publication Information Reporting Service