Research Graph: Building a Distributed Graph of Scholarly Works using Research Data Switchboard

This is the pre-print version of a paper accepted in Open Repository Conference in Brisbane, Australia, June 2017. Abstract: In this paper, we discuss an open collaborative project called Research Graph derived from the outcome of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) working group on Data Description Registry Interoperability. This project addresses the problem of connecting scholarly works across heterogeneous systems. The RDA working group recommendation provided a solution for connecting publications and research data (data in research) across multiple open access repositories using co-authorship model and jointly funded research projects. Research Graph adopts and extends this work by creating a distributed graph that connects open access repositories to close research management systems traditionally locked behind the firewall. In addition, the distributed graph addresses the challenge of scalability and enables individual universities and repositories to hold a small and manageable graph and synthesis this graph with trusted partner organisations.