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Where VIVO data typically comes from
It's perfectly possible, if laborious, to add all data to VIVO through interactive editing. For a small research institution this may be the preferred method, and many VIVO institutions employ students or staff to add and update information for which no reliable system of record exists. If VIVO has been hooked up to the institutional single sign-on, self-editing by faculty members or researchers has been used effectively, especially if basic information has been populated and the focus of self editing is on populating research interests, teaching statements, professional service, or other more straightforward information.
This approach does not scale well to larger institutions, and full reliance on researchers do editing brings its own problems of training, consistency in data entry, and motivating people to keep content up to date. Many VIVOs are supported through libraries that are more comfortable providing carrots than sticks and want the VIVO outreach message to focus on positive benefits vs. threats about stale content or mandates to enter content for annual reporting purposes.
VIVO is all about sharing local data both locally and globally. Much of the local data typically resides in "systems of record" – formerly entirely locally hosted and often homegrown, but more recently starting to migrate to open source software (e.g, Kuali) or to cloud solutions.
These systems of record are often silos used for a defined set of business purposes such as personnel and payroll, grants administration, course registration and management, an institutional repository, news and communications, event calendar(s), or extension. Even when the same software platform is used, local metadata requirements and functional customizations may make any data source unique.
For this reason and the additional the VIVO community
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