Glossary

A list of terms used in Norwegian Research Information Repository (NVA) with explanations.

A

AAM

See Author Accepted Manuscript

Academic publication

For a publication to be considered academic, it will have to undergo extensive quality control by other researchers (peer review). Only certain types of publications receive this kind of quality control:

Monographs: Books where all chapters are written by one or a few authors. The chapters typically follow the same main theme.
Anthologies: Books where the chapters are written by several different authors. The chapters can have different main themes.
Articles: Shorter works that summarize a research study.
Review articles: A type of article that uses other research articles as data sources, and provides a summary of the research on the topic.

Academic journal article

An article that meets the requirements to be considered academic, according to the reporting instructions, and is published in a journal that has been approved for the NVI reporting.

There are two types of academic articles: original research articles and review articles.

Administrator (NVA)

One of the roles in the NVA system. The role is responsible for managing personal and employment information for their institution, as well as role access. Their tasks include registering employment information for users who needs access to register their results, setting end dates for those who should no longer have that access, and assigning editor and curator roles to employees. The administrator can also appoint a new/additional administrator(s).

Anthology

A book where the chapter have different authors. The book itself may have one or more editors.

Only the chapters of an academic anthology can be reported to NVI. You do not get any publication points for being the editor. Som ebooks contain both chapters that meet the criteria, and some that don't. Only chapters that meet the criteria can be reported.

In NVA the book itself must first be registered as an Anthology, and then you may register the chapters. Academic chapters may be included in the NVI-reporting.

API (Application programming interface)

A service that makes data in NVA available for reuse in other IT-systems or web pages. The service also makes it possible for NVA to retrieve and share data/information to and from other systems.

Author accepted manuscript (AAM)

The version of the article that has been finalized after peer review, and is the author's final version of the publication. This version does not have the publisher's layout, page numbers, or issue number.

Note that not all publishers accept that the AAM/postprint is made publicly available. See Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) for more information.

Author share

Any unique combination of author and institution on a publication.

B

Brage

An institutional repository 2006-2025.

Is being replaced by NVA.

C

Case study

"A case report is a description of one or more individual cases of a disease. The cases are chosen because they are typical of the disease, especially interesting, or peculiar. Case reports are used as part of teaching, dissemination, and research" (snl.no).

Case reports are normally not considered academic, according to the criteria for NVI reporting, and should generally not be reported. The exception is if the study actually meets the listed requirements.

Channel level

The channel registry is divided into different levels – Level 2, Level 1, and "Level 0."

Level 2 includes the most prestigious publication channels. These make up about 20% of the publication share within each field. Level 1 contains the rest of the publication channels that meet the requirements to provide point scoring in the reporting. Channels that do not meet the requirements are said to be at level 0.

Newly registered channels are said to be at "Level X."

Channel registry

An overview of journals and publishers. A selection of these have been assessed to meet a high enough scientific standard to be approved publication channels for NVI reporting. Academic channels must e.g. have rutines for peer review (also called referee system).

The channels that provide point scoring are divided into two levels: Level 1 and Level 2, where publications at Level 2 are considered to have higher scientific quality and receive more publication points.

The channel register is owned by the Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir).

Colophon (page)

A short text in a newspaper, journal, or book with detailed information about production and publication. It typically contains information about the publisher, ISBN, ISSN, and whether the publication is a revision.

Contributor (NVA)

People who have contributed in the production of a result, project data set, etc.

Controlled vocabulary

Standardised subject terms lists.

The institution can choose to activate selected lists with controlled vocabularies to describe and organise content published in NVA. The subject terms help classify the registered research and make published content easier to find and reuse.

Currently, the Health Research Classification System (HRCS) is available. These subject terms are only relevant for health research.

Control period

The time period in which administrative staff at the institutions check academic publications that are to be reported to the Norwegian Science Index (NVI). The period normally runs from May in the NVI year to the reporting date around April of the following year.

Previously called "Reporting period".

Coordinating institution

The institution that has the overall responsibility or is the contact point for the project.

Costumer

An institution that has entered into an agreement to use the NVA system to publish its research and development activity.

Creative commons licence

Creative commons (CC) is an international nonprofit organization that offers free licences that creators can use when they make their work available to the public. The purpose of a CC licence is to inform audiences that they can reuse the work in their own work, and what, if any, limitations apply. Read more about licences on openscience.no.

Credit

The institution(s) the author specifies as contributors/address on a result or project.

This does not have to be the same institution they are formally employed by (see the Reporting Instructions, point 7).

Cristin

The national research information system 2010-2025.

The application will be replaced by NVA in 2025, but the database will continue to exist. The person registry, institutional registry, projects, and some result types are stored there. Nothing that is stored in the Cristin database will be deleted, but not everything will be visible in NVA from the start.

Curator (NVA)

An administrative role in the NVA system.

Curators are tasked with supporting researchers in registering their content, distributing DOIs to results, publishing student theses, determining if the correct files and licences are registered on a result, and controlling publications for the NVI reporting.

Curator support (NVA)

The curators are responsible for assisting researchers with their registrations. A researcher can contact a curator by clicking the "Get help fom a curator" button in the registration interface.

D

Deposit

To deposit an item in a repository involves the temporary storage of that item, before deciding after a certain period whether it should be preserved permanently or discarded (culling).

When the full-text version of an article is deposited in NVA, a digital backup of the publication has been created. It has also become easier to find and reuse for others who may be interested in the work.

Dispute (NVI)

A dispute arises when at least two institutions disagree on whether a publication can be reported to NVI. Disputes can be reported to Sikt, which will present the case to the Dispute Committee.

Dispute commitee

The Dispute Committee for NVI handles cases where institutions cannot agree on whether a publication can be reported to NVI or not. The committee consists of a representative from the higher education sector, one from the research institute sector, and one from the health trusts. UHR coordinates the committee process and determines the final composition.

Cases to the Dispute Committee should be formally reported to kontakt@sikt.no with the involved institutions copied, by the deadline set for that year. Within three working days after the reporting deadline, the case submission must be sent. The case submission must include all documentation from the various parties in the dispute that will be relevant for the case processing. The cases must be well-documented and supported by the institution's management. The decisions of the Dispute Committee are final and cannot be appealed.

DOI (Digital object identifier; for publications and data sets)

A unique digital identifier for an object, such as a publication or lab equipment. DOI makes it possible to retrieve objects even if they are moved from one location to another.

In NVA, you can use the DOI link of an article during registration to fetch metadata from the publisher, so you don't have to fill out all the information manually.

DUCT = Data Delivery from Cristin to Tableau

A service that uses the analytics and visualization tool Tableau to provide institutions with greater access to process and visualize their own data in the Cristin database.

H

Health Research Classification System (HRCS)

A standardised system for classifying health related research, thus only relevant for health research. HRCS codes can be added to projects and results, and for health research articles it is highly recommended.

Health sector

Designation for all hospitals (health trusts) and National Research and Competence Centres outside the specialist health service. They are grouped into the four regional health authorities (RHAs). The RHAs' strategic group for research is their collaborative body for topics related to research.

HEI-sector

Designation for all universities and colleges. Universities Norway (UHR) is their collaborative body.

I

Institute sector

Designation for all research institutes. The Joint Arena of the Research Institutes (FFA) is their collaborative body.

Institution's code

Every institution in the institution registry has been given a unique ID number. Employees at an institution can find their institution's code by clicking on the icon with their institutions acronyme, then "Institution profile" and under "Code".

ISSN: = International Standard Serial Number

An international system for identifying serial publications. ISSN is assigned to journals/magazines/book series, not individual publications. It consists of 8 digits in the format 1234 – 5678.

ISBN: = International Standard Book Number

A unique numerical combination that identifies a single book. It consists of 10 or 13 digits.

L

Licence

see Creative commons-licence

M

Metadata

Metadata (/metainformation) is information that describes one or more characteristics of a type of data. For example, metadata for an article includes information such as the title, authors, publication date, journal, page numbers, etc.

Monograph

A book where all the chapters/the entire work are written by the same author(s). For academic monographs, it is the book as a whole that should be assessed for reporting to NVI, not each individual chapter.

N

National science index (NVI)

NVI is a collection of metadata about peer-reviewed, academic publications that have been reported to the Ministry of Education and Research (KD) and the Ministry of Health and Care Services (HOD).

The collection is part of the NVA database and is shared among all client institutions. Authors who credit one of NVA's client institutions must be identified (Norwegian national ID number, D number, or alternative ID) in order to include their publications in the institutional report.

The Reporting Instruction provide the framework for what types of publications can be included in the annual NVI reporting.

Norwegian publication indicator (NPI)

The publication indicator is a metric used to measure the research output and impact of scientific publications. It evaluates and quantifies the contributions of researchers and institutions based on the number and quality of their published works. This indicator often influences funding, reputation, and strategic decisions within academic and research communities.

NVI year

The year of publication that the NVI reporting applies to. NVI year 2024" is for publications that were published in 2024.

O

Online article

An article that is published electronically/on the internet. It can be reported to NVI if it has a DOI or volume, issue, and page numbers, and is marked with the same year as the NVI reporting period.

Online last

An article that is published electronically/online after it has been published in print format. It can be reported to NVI if the print version of the article was not reported, the article has a DOI or volume, issue, and page numbers, and the publication year on the online article is the same as the NVI reporting period.

Open policy finder

Formerly Sherpa/Romeo.

Open policy finder is an online resource where researchers can search for information about the open access policies of publishers and journals from around the world.

You may search the database at https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID; for authors)

To identify researchers and other academic authors. It ensures that their publications can be correctly linked to them, even if they use different author names on their publications.

Original article

An article that presents the results of a research study for the first time.

P

Peer review

A process in which other researchers within a field critically review a publication to ensure that the research work is of sufficient quality.

Persistent identifiers, PIDs

IDs that are permanent and do not change over time, such as Norwegian national ID numbers. Persistent identifiers allow us to correctly identify, for example, a person or an institution, even if the name contains spelling errors or is written in different ways. This ensures that results and projects are linked to the correct owner.

Plenary

A type of conference presentation where all participants at the conference are attendees (in plenary), as opposed to a session presentation. An example of a plenary presentation is a keynote speaker.

Preprint

The version of the article before peer review. Preprint is not the same as published ahead of print.

The preprint version of an article cannot be reported to NVI.

Printed article

An article that is published in a journal issued on paper or electronically and includes publication year, volume, issue, series, and page numbers. It can be reported to NVI if the publication year is the same as the NVI reporting period.

Professional article

An article aimed at other professionals, but does not meet all the requirements for academic publications according to the Reporting instructions.

Cannot be reported to NVI.

Project

A project is a work with a clear objective and is limited in scope, time, and resources.

Publication

A written work that is made public (published) in a journal, book, or electronically. Examples include academic articles, books, opinion pieces, conference papers, encyclopedia entries, e-books, etc.

Publication points

How much credit a specific publication can provide in the reporting. An algorithm then calculates each institution's share of this score.

Published ahead of print/online first

An article that is published electronically/online before it is released in print format. It can be reported to NVI if it has a DOI and is marked with the same year as the NVI reporting period.

R

Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK)

All research that falls under the Health Research Act must apply to REK (Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics) for ethical approval before starting the research project. The application forms to REK are linked to the Cristin database, and approved projects are automatically transferred to the project catalog in NVA.

Research repository

An archive for storing publications that are part of research and development work. For example: academic articles, doctoral theses, master's theses, and reports.

Researcher profile

All persons who are identified in NVA with a valid Norwegian security number or D-number, have a user profile. It contains personal information, field of research and research background, results and projects.

To edit the user profile you need to have an active, registered employment at an NVA costumer institution.

Result (NVA)

In the NVA context, "result" means "the final product of a research or development work" and can range from an academic article to lectures, concerts, datasets, and theatre productions.

Review article

An article in which multiple studies within a topic or research area have been reviewed, and presents a comprehensive overview of the research in the field/topic.

Revised/revision

A reissue of an original work that has undergone some changes since the first publication.

Revised editions should normally not be reported to NVI. Exceptions are described in the Reporting Instructions, point 5.8.

ROR (The Research Organization Registry; for institutions)

ROR is for institutions what ORCID is for individuals. The registry contains an overview of all research institutions worldwide and has assigned them a unique, persistent ID.

ROR makes it much easier to link a publication to the correct institution because we do not have to manually interpret different spellings or typographical errors in the institution names when importing. This increases the quality and speed of the central import. Therefore, all institutions are assigned a ROR, if they do not already have one, when they start using NVA.

S

Sherpa/Romeo

See Open policy finder

Sikt – Kunnskapssektorens tjenesteleverandør

Has the main responsibility for developing, managing, and procuring digital services for higher education and research institutions. Sikt owns and develops NVA and has the coordination responsibility for NVI reporting.

Organized under the Ministry of Education and Research.

Study protocol

"The study protocol describes the purpose, design, method, statistical considerations, objectives, and a description of how the trial will be conducted" (legemiddelverket.no).

Generally should not be reported to NVI.

T

Textbook

A book intended to convey knowledge about a subject to someone with no prior knowledge. It is often specifically aimed at students or pupils.