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The RIXML Research Standard is is a custom XML definition that provides a standardized, flexible, and comprehensive mechanism for describing investment research.

Reducing friction in the investment research creation, distribution, and acquisition process.

A standardized way to describe investment research

The RIXML Research Standard is a custom XML definition that provides a standardized, flexible, and comprehensive mechanism for describing investment research content.

For all types of investment research

company reports | models | sector, industry, country, and region overviews | macroeconomic analysis | thematic research | podcasts | webinars

For all formats

PDF | Excel | text files | audio and video | HTML5

For all distribution channels

publisher's website | aggregation platforms | direct feeds | custom solutions

For all tasks

describe | distribute | categorize | aggregate | search | compare | sort | search | distill

Background

Investment research takes many forms: in-depth company reports, models, macroeconomic research, company, industry, country, and region overviews, conference call replays, morning meeting compilations, webinars, podcasts, and more. Sellside firms and other publishers need to share details about this content for a variety of reasons – to populate the databases that power traditional search and alert tools, to help AI-powered research analysis tools locate relevant content more quickly, and to provide research readership data for use in broker vote tools.

RIXML member firms recognized that while every research report is unique, the information that must be captured and communicated about investment research is not. Working together, the member firms developed the RIXML Research Standard, an XML standard that provide a flexible set of tags, rules, and guidelines for describing a wide variety of investment research content. Since this standard was developed by buyside firms, sellside firms, and vendors, it contains the tags and structure to accommodate the needs of all types of firms.

The RIXML Research Standard contains the list of tags identified by member firms as being important to describe a research document. There are hundreds of tags.

  • Some of these tags are required, while others are optional.
  • Some tags are required for certain types of content, but not for others. For example, if you publish a company report, you must provide a company name and ticker, and you may choose to include the industry that the company is in; conversely, for an industry overview report, you must provide the industry, but you may or may not choose to provide tickers for the companies mentioned in the report.

The standard also contains the rules that must be followed in using these tags. For example:

  • Every report must have a title.
  • A company report does not need to provide an industry tag, but an industry overview report does.
  • The valid terms for a rating action must be selected from a particular list of valid terms for that field (this list is called an enumeration list).
  • Any date field that is used must be structured in a particular way, following the ISO standard for date.

How does it work?

RIXML tagging powers tools that capture, communicate, and analyze investment research content. It also increases the speed and efficiency of AI analysis tools by providing the metadata that describes investment research in a structured, standardized format.

The metadata in a RIXML research record is designed to meet the needs of both the humans and the systems that will be using it. It includes tagging that describes the publisher and author of the research report, provides details about the purpose and topics discussed, and facilitates content management and recordkeeping.

The tags and rules that define the standard are collected and described in the schema. The RIXML Research schema files are the actual set of .XSD files that represents the relationships and components defined within the object model. The schema files contain the detailed list of tags used in the RIXML Research Standard, the rules that govern them, and the list of terms that are valid for enumerated fields. This schema files can also be used to validate actual RIXML Research instance documents to ensure that the firm implementing the standard is creating RIXML Research-compliant content.

The RIXML Research Standard provides a flexible way to describe a wide range of research content types and topics, to describe them with as little or as much data as needed, and to provide connections to other related research content.

Key tag sets

The RIXML Research Standard offers a broad range of tags, giving publishers the flexibility to determine the level of tagging that suits their needs and to select the tags and tag sets that best describe their research. While some tags, such as publisher, author, and title, are used for all research content, other tags are tailored to specific types of research content or asset classes. The Research Standard includes tags allowing publishers to describe the:

Publisher information

Publisher firm, authors, and related information.

TItle and related information

Title, subtitle, abstract, and summary, with the ability to have multiple titles for different audiences.

Report focus

Allows the publisher to indicate the primary focus of the report: single company, sector overview, macroeconomic analysis, thematic explainer, etc.

Companies and topics discussed

The specific company, sector, industry, country, region, asset class, or topic the report is this report about. Multiples are allowed, and the publisher can indicate which one the report is primarily focused on.

Related content

Other research reports, models, interactions, etc. related to the report.

Format

Allows the publisher to indicate the format of the content: written research, a video or audio file, or an interactive web page. Also indicates the purpose: model, research report, podcast, etc.

Ratings, weightings, estimates, and actions

Ratings, weightings, estimates, and changes to each of these can be attached at the top level or at a more granular level, allowing clear guidance about the ratings, weightings, and estimates being provided.

Disclaimers, disclosures, and administrative tags

What is the Research Standard used for?

Describing research content

RIXML metadata allows publishers to provide clear information about the content of each research report they publish.

Improving discoverability

RIXML enables detailed, consistent tagging of research content, making it far easier for both humans and machines to find relevant research quickly.

  • Supports precise filtering and faceted search
  • Enables generative search and AI tools to retrieve the right research, not just keyword matches
  • Reduces noise and duplication in large research repositories

Making connections

Because the standards in the RIXML Standards Suite are built on a shared tag set, the tags used to describe the author of a research report are the same tags as those used to describe a participant in an interaction, and the same as are used to convey coverage/roster update list data. Firms using the Research Standard to convey or receive research metadata benefit from a more straightforward way to analyze this data and to merge this data with other usage data.

From defining the standard to delivering the metadata

The RIXML Research Standard is a custom XML standard developed by the member firms of RIXML to address the unique needs of describing investment research, models, and other research content. Publishers use this standard to develop tools that create metadata describing their research. When a research report is published, a corresponding RIXML Research metadata files is sent as well, populating the databases that aggregators and direct feed recipients use to power traditional and generative search engines.
Wondering what the steps are in implementing the RIXML Research Standard into your workflow? Below are the key landmarks, how often they occur, and who is responsible:

Member firms define the requirements

FREQUENCY: every few years
CONDUCTED BY: RIXML member firms

Developed collaboratively by the buyside, sellside, and vendor firms that make up RIXML’s membership, the Research Standard provides a flexible, standardized framework for describing investment research content. It gives publishers a robust language for describing a wide range of research, streamlines the process of communicating the metadata that describes each research item, and reduces friction in vendors’ product development workflows.

Directors of Research, Supervisory Analysts, IT developers, taxonomists, compliance experts, and broker vote coordinators have worked together to determine how best to describe investment research content, and continue to work together to plan further enhancements.

The schema files provide the blueprint

FREQUENCY: When there's a new RIXML Research Standard release or when your firm's needs change
CONDUCTED BY: Firms creating tools to create, aggregate, search for, or analyze investment research

The structure, allowed content, and validation rules for the RIXML Research Standard are defined in a set of three XML Schema Definition (XSD) files.

Together, these schema files act as the blueprint for RIXML Research records, specifying which elements are permitted, how they relate to one another, and what values are considered valid.

Developers rely on these XSD files to build systems and tools that allow investment professionals to create, aggregate, and consume investment research content in a consistent and interoperable way. While end users never interact with the XSD files directly, the schema rules are embedded in the front end applications they use.

Each research report is accompanied by an instance document with the metadata that describes it

FREQUENCY: An instance document is created for each research report
CONDUCTED BY: Sellside firms and other research content providers

When a research report, model, or other type of research content is created using a front-end application built using the RIXML Research Standard framework, the system creates RIXML-compliant metadata instance file without the end user even being aware that it is happening. The predefined fields, dropdown menus, and controlled pick lists they see reflect the allowable values defined in the schemas. Required fields and dependencies are enforced automatically, preventing incomplete or invalid records from being created.

Standardized metadata simplifies communication

FREQUENCY: As scheduled or requested by buyside firms or other interaction feed consumers
CONDUCTED BY: Sellside firms and other publishers of investment research content

By using the RIXML Research format, publishers can deliver the metadata aggregators and direct feed recipients need without building and maintaining bespoke solutions for each distribution channel. Instead, a single, standardized format can be used to distribute research metadata consistently across firms.

Aggregators and buyside firms benefit by receiving research metadata in the same format from all sellside partners, making it easier to aggregate, compare, search for, and manage research content from multiple sources.

In addition, all standards in the RIXML Standards Suite use a shared set of tags to describe people, companies, and other core reference information. This common vocabulary streamlines the process of linking detailed analyst data across coverage list, interaction record, and research usage feeds, which simplifies integration and supports downstream workflows such as the broker vote process and compliance verification.

Plan your implementation

Background

If you are new to RIXML or metadata in general, here are some resources you may find helpful:

Learn & plan

Wondering where to begin? Here are the steps involved in implementing the RIXML Research Standard:

Reach out for help

As you are developing your implementation, you may wish to:

  • Contact RIXML
    If you need basic assistance in getting started with the RIXML Research Standard or if you have a question that isn't covered in our documentation, feel free to reach out.
  • Become a member
    RIXML member firms work together to develop best practices, share insights and lessons learned, and develop the Interactions Standard. If your firm is using any of our standards, joining RIXML will connect you with other buyside firms, sellside firms, and vendors who are using it as well.

Current production version:

RIXML Research Standard v2.5

Released December 15, 2017

Documentation

The documentation for the RIXML Research Standard provides an easy-to-read description of the standard and every tag it includes. It is designed to be of use to both the business-side experts determining their firm's needs and to the developers tasked with creating databases, feeds, and interfaces.

Schema files

The tag definitions for the Research Standard are provided in a set of three XSD files, two of which are used by all standards in the RIXML Standards Suite, and one of which contains the tags and framework unique to the Research Standard:

Reference links

COMING SOON

RIXML Standards Suite v3.0

The next major update to the RIXML Standards Suite will soon be available, featuring a streamlined structure and many enhancements designed to ensure that the standards continue to address the needs of all firms involved in the creation, distrbution, and consumption of investment research and interaction data.

KEY CHANGES

  • Streamlined tag structure
  • Improved consistency
  • Simplified entitlement options
  • Updated enumerations
  • Component-level tagging
  • Multi-audience support
  • More flexible connections
  • Robust disclosure options
  • Enhanced support of audio, video, and HTML files
Learn more

Using the RIXML Standards

The standards in the RIXML Standards Suite are free for use by any individual or firm. Membership in the RIXML organization is not required.

However, membership in RIXML allows your firm to guide development of the standards in the future, network with other member firms, and attend a wide range of topic-based meetings.

Explore membership