Filename extension .ris | Type of format Bibliography | |
Internet media type application/x-research-info-systems | ||
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. It is supported by a number of reference managers. Many digital libraries, like IEEE Xplore, Scopus, the ACM Portal, Scopemed, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink and Rayyan QCRI can export citations in this format. Major reference/citation manager applications, like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote can export and import citations in this format.
Contents
Format
The RIS file format — two letters, two spaces and a hyphen — is a tagged format for expressing bibliographic citations. According to the specifications, 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 - 1948/07// 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:
Tags
Excerpt of main RIS tags. Except for TY - and ER -, order of tags is free and their inclusion is optional. The content may vary depending on the type of reference.