RIS_(file_format)

RIS (file format)

RIS (file format)

Standardized tag format for references exchange


RIS is a standardized tag format developed by Research Information Systems, Incorporated (the format name refers to the company) to enable citation programs to exchange data.[1] It is supported by a number of reference managers. Many digital libraries, like IEEE Xplore, Scopus, the ACM Portal, Scopemed, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Rayyan, Accordance Bible Software,[2] and online library catalogs can export citations in this format. Citation management applications can export and import citations in this format.

Quick Facts Filename extension, Internet media type ...

Format

The RIS file format—two letters, two spaces and a hyphen—is a tagged format for expressing bibliographic citations. According to the specifications,[3][4][5] the lines must end with the ASCII carriage return and line feed characters. Note that this is the convention on Microsoft Windows, while in other contemporary operating systems, particularly Unix, the end of line is typically marked by line feed only.

Multiple citation records can be present in a single RIS file. A record ends with an "end record" tag ER - with no additional blank lines between records.

Example record

This is an example of how the article "Claude E. Shannon. A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, 27:379–423, July 1948" would be expressed in the RIS file format:

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shannon, Claude E.
PY  - 1948
DA  - July
TI  - A Mathematical Theory of Communication
T2  - Bell System Technical Journal
SP  - 379
EP  - 423
VL  - 27
ER  - 

Example multi-record format

This is an example of how two citation records would be expressed in a single RIS file. Note the first record ends with ER - and the second record begins with TY - JOUR:

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shannon, Claude E.
PY  - 1948
DA  - July
TI  - A Mathematical Theory of Communication
T2  - Bell System Technical Journal
SP  - 379
EP  - 423
VL  - 27
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
T1  - On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem
A1  - Turing, Alan Mathison
JO  - Proc. of London Mathematical Society
VL  - 47
IS  - 1
SP  - 230
EP  - 265
Y1  - 1937
ER  - 

Tags

The TY - tag must appear first and the ER - tag must appear last.[6][7][8] Most tags must appear at most once, but the author, keyword, and URL tags can be repeated.[6]

Each name must be formatted as a comma-separated list of last name, first name (including middle names, can be initials), and suffix, in that order, and must not be longer than 255 characters.[6][9][10][8] Unless otherwise specified, each date must be formatted as a slash-separated list of 4-digit year, 2-digit month, 2-digit day, and other info (e.g. season); unused fields may be omitted if they are at the end.[6][11][8]

Many strings have limits on what characters they can contain (e.g. any ASCII character, just alphanumerics, or just digits) or their length (often limited to 255 characters). These are only sometimes noted in the table below; see the linked sources to double-check, particularly [9] and the pages in RIS Format Specifications.

There are two major versions of the RIS specification, one from 2001, and one from the end of 2011 with different lists of tags for each type of record, sometimes with different meanings.[4][5][12][13] Below is an excerpt of the main RIS tags, from both versions. Except for TY - and ER -, order of tags is free and their inclusion is optional.[better source needed]

More information Tag, Meaning (see linked references for more details, such as which types have which interpretations) ...

Type of reference

The type of reference preceded by the TY - tag must abbreviated as:

More information Abbreviation ("Field Label"), Type ("Ref Type") ...

See also

  • BIBFRAME—bibliographic framework, an emerging standard to replace MARC
  • Bibliographic record—general concept
  • BibTeX—a text-based data format used by LaTeX
  • EndNote—a text-based data scheme used by the EndNote program
  • MARC—machine-readable cataloging standards
  • refer—an aging text-based data scheme supported on UNIX-like systems

References

  1. The origin of the name RIS was obtained via email from Henry Johnson, a Customer Technical Representative at Scientific Thomson Reuters. Research Information Systems was acquired by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in 1994, a division of Thomson Business Information (later Thomson Reuters and then Clarivate). Thomson subsequently acquired ProCite from Personal Bibliographic Software Inc, as well as Niles software, the creators of EndNote. The result of the merger was the creation of ISI ResearchSoft, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, which produces Reference Manager, EndNote and ProCite. Email date 7/3/08.
  2. "New Features in 11.2". www.accordancebible.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-05.
  3. "RIS File Format". ResearcherID.com. Thomson Reuters. 2012. Archived from the original on 2017-07-07.
  4. "RIS Format Specifications". Reference Manager. The Thomson Corporation. 2001-02-14. Archived from the original on 2011-09-30.
  5. "RIS Format Specifications". Reference Manager. The Thomson Corporation. 2011-10-06. Archived from the original on 2012-05-26.
  6. "EndNote: Directions for implementing EndNote Direct Export". Knowledge. Support - Clarivate. June 28, 2022. Archived from the original on September 30, 2023.
  7. "Field Types and Tags: Page 2 of 2". RIS Format Specifications. February 14, 2001. p. 2. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  8. "7.1. Writing RIS datasets". refdb handbook: covers version 0.9.6, Chapter 7. Data input. November 14, 2005. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  9. Biblioteca Universitaria / Unibertsitateko Biblioteka; llzrimem (January 31, 2011). "ACCESS A RIS / Instrucciones para pasar registros de Access 2007 a RIS" (PDF). Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (in English and Spanish). pp. 10–13. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 1, 2023.
  10. "Tag Definitions: Authors". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 4. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  11. "Tag Definitions: Year and Free Text Fields". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 5. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  12. larsgw (April 12, 2021). "RIS specification". Zotero Forums. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  13. Eaton, Alf (July 18, 2013) [July 15, 2013]. "ris-tags.md: Reference Manager RIS file format". Retrieved October 1, 2023 via GitHub Gist.
  14. Melinn, Jennifer; Rodriguez, Cheryl (July 10, 2013). "EndNote: Directions for implementing EndNote Direct Export - EN RIS Documentation.xls". EndNote Desktop, Exporting. Thomson Scientific (published June 28, 2022). Archived from the original on October 1, 2023. Retrieved September 30, 2023 via Clarivate, hosted by Salesforce. Summarized at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTOqwg_HALSlMz_ykEJmhQ9Jrqld7MkjVvQ5CQSPRqm5RCudguZnlP3t3N2ax0DeTTI-CmtJ_tOw60n/pubdoc. Old version available in https://web.archive.org/web/20120717122530/http://refman.com/support/direct%20export.zip; the differences are: the "Bill" sheet was named "Bill, Unenacted Bill"; the "Dataset" sheet was named "Data File"; the "Interview", "Podcast", "Press Release", and "Sheet1" (a list of the type abbreviations and full names) sheets did not yet exist; and "M1" meaning "Issue" was not yet in the "Conference Paper" sheet. {{cite web}}: External link in |postscript= (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  15. "RefWorks Tagged Format". RefWorks. n.d. [It was first archived on March 12, 2004, but has had some changes since then.] Archived from the original on October 22, 2019.
  16. "Importing a RIS File". Citavi 6 Manual. April 11, 2019. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  17. "Comparison of the Medline (txt), Medline (xml), and RIS format". JabRef v5 GitBook. May 11, 2022. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  18. Putnam, Chris (November 12, 2021). "lib/ristypes.c". Bibutils version 7.2. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023 via SourceForge.
  19. Putnam, Chris (November 12, 2021). "lib/risout.c". Bibutils version 7.2. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023 via SourceForge.
  20. Posthumus, Etienne (October 15, 2018). "bibserver/parserscrapers_plugins/RISParser.py". BibServer. Open Knowledge Foundation. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023 via GitHub.
  21. "Tag Definitions: Periodical and Publisher Tags". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 8. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  22. "Tag Definitions: Misc. Tags". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 9. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  23. "Tag Definitions: Title and Reference Type Tags". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 3. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  24. "RefWorks Tagged Format". RefWorks. Archived from the original on March 12, 2004.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  25. "Tag Definitions: Periodical Tags". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 7. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  26. "Tag Definitions: Keywords and Reprint Status". RIS Format Specifications. July 7, 2004. p. 6. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.
  27. Putnam, Chris (November 12, 2021). "lib/risin.c". Bibutils version 7.2. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023 via SourceForge.
  28. "Reference Type Field Names". RIS Format Specifications. February 14, 2001. p. 10. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010.

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