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.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. It is supported by a number of reference managers. Many digital libraries, like Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, the ACM Portal, Scopemed, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Rayyan, The Lens, Accordance Bible Software, and online library catalogs can export citations in this format. Citation management applications can export and import citations in this format.
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 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 and the second record begins with :
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 tag must appear first and the tag must appear last. Most tags must appear at most once, but the author, keyword, and URL tags can be repeated.
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. 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.
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 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. 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.
Tag Meaning (see linked references for more details, such as which types have which interpretations)A1Interviewee. (Primary) author. Synonym of AU.A2Secondary author/editor/translator, e.g. editor, performers, sponsor, series editor, reporter, institution, name of file, producer, series director, department, interviewer, issuing organization, recipient, or narrator. The tag must be repeated for each person. Synonym of ED.RIS documentation summarised at . Old version available at ; 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.A3Tertiary author/editor/translator, e.g. series editor/author, illustrator, editor, higher court, producer, director, international author, publisher, or advisor. The tag must be repeated for each person. Collaborators.A4Subsidiary/quaternary author/editor/translator, e.g. translator, counsel, sponsor, funding agency, performers, producer, department/division, or volume editor. The tag must be repeated for each person.A5Quinary author / compiler.A6Website editor.ABAbstract or synopsis. Notes. Synonym of N2.AD(Author/editor/inventor) address, e.g. postal address, email address, phone number, and/or fax number. Institution.ANAccession number.AU(Primary) author/editor/translator, e.g. author, artist, created by, attribution, programmer, investigators, editor, director, interviewee, cartographer, composer, reporter, inventor, or institution. The tag must be repeated for each person. Synonym of A1.AVNotes. Availability (description of where to find it). Location in archives.BTPrimary/secondary title. For Whole Book (BOOK) and Unpublished Work (UNPB) references, this maps to T1 or TI; for all other types, this maps to T2. Subtitle. Book title.C1Custom 1, e.g. legal note, cast, author affiliation, section, place published, time period, term, year cited, government body, contact name, scale, format of music, column, or sender's e-mail.C2Custom 2, e.g. PMCID, credits, year published, unit of observation, date cited, congress number, contact address, area, form of composition, issue, issue date, recipients e-mail, or report number.C3Custom 3, e.g. size/length, title prefix, proceedings title, data type, PMCID, congress session, contact phone, size, music parts, or designated states.C4Custom 4, e.g. reviewer, dataset(s), genre, contact fax, target audience, or attorney/agent.C5Custom 5, e.g. format, packaging method, issue title, last update date, funding number, accompanying matter, format/length, references, or publisher.C6Custom 6, e.g. NIHMSID, CFDA number, legal status, issue, or volume.C7Custom 7, e.g. article number or PMCID.C8Custom 8, not used by any of the standard types.CACaption.CLClassification.CNCall number.CPCity/place of publication. Issue.CRCited references.CTCaption. Primary title. Address. Title of unpublished reference.CYPlace published, e.g. city, conference location, country, or activity location.DADate, e.g. date accessed, last update date, date decided, date of collection, date released, deadline, date of code edition, or date enacted.DBName of database.DIDigital Object Identifier (DOI).DODigital Object Identifier (DOI). This used to be documented as "Document Object Index".DOIDigital Object Identifier (DOI).DPDatabase provider.DSData source.EDSecondary author. Editor. Synonym of A2. Edition.EPPages. End page.EREnd of reference. Must be the last tag.ETEdition, e.g. epub (electronic publication?) date, date published, session, action of higher court, version, requirement, description of material, international patent classification, or description.FDFree-form publication data.H1Location (library).H2Location (call number).IDReference identifier, may be limited to 20 alphanumeric characters.IPIdentifying phrase.ISNumber, e.g. issue or number of volumes.J1Notes. User abbreviation 1 of journal/periodical name.J2Alternate title, e.g. alternate journal, abbreviated publication, abbreviation, or alternate magazine. If possible, it should be a standard abbreviation, preferably using the Index Medicus style including periods. This field is used for the abbreviated title of a book or journal name, the latter mapped to T2.