Do library catalogues and repositories talk to each other?
The Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde is currently investigating the links between university library catalogues and digital repositories as part of a JISC funded study.
Can library users find resources in their university’s digital repository through the library catalogue? Do library catalogues and repositories share records for the same items?
If catalogues and repositories generally aren’t linked in these sorts of ways at the moment, could they be?
These are some of the issues being explored by the study. The team are surveying repository managers and others about now - so, if you receive a request to respond to their online survey, your response would be much appreciated.
For further information about the study, please visit the project’s Web site and the project’s Web page on the JISC site.
Sharing citations?
An international workshop in Amsterdam in March, funded by JISC, SURF and DRIVER, discussed work needed to improve interoperability between repositories. Four areas of work were focused upon:
- citation services
- interoperable identification systems
- repository handshaking (interoperable deposit systems), and
- repository organisation (supporting repositories around the world)
There’s more information and an update here:
http://repinf.pbworks.com/
There is also an option to sign up to this wiki / community.
Specifically now, there is a proposal for internationally coordinated work to enable repositories of OA research papers to share the citations therein. This is currently out for public review, and your comments would be most welcome. Please see the proposal here:
http://repinf.pbworks.com/Citation-Services-draft-project-proposal
There are some 15-20 funders of repositories infrastructure around the world (like JISC in the UK) also looking at this proposal, with a view to funding the work it describes.
Thanks
Neil
Web Services and repositories
I attended a workshop on June 2 on the use of Web Services to enable interoperability between repositories, repository services and other systems. The workshop was organised by the Ethos project (Electronic Theses Online). Most attendees were from a repository manager or developer background.
[Update: the presentations (including audio recording) at this event are now available]
As a number of speakers noted, the term ‘Web Services’ is a very broad one. The main focus of the day was on the use of a number of specific protocols and approaches to provide ’services’:
SWORD for depositing items in repositories
SRU to search for and retrieve items
And REST for passing data between servers.
Using such ’services’ enables repository services to be used from within environments other than the repository itself (so, if you wanted to deposit an item in a repository from within a research management application of some kind, for example). It also enables repositories to use other systems’ services. One example given of this was look up of file format information from the National Archives’ PRONOM database of file formats.
From discussion, the general view appeared to be that Web Services do have a role to play in aiding integration of repositories with other systems and avoiding ’silos’. However, achieving such integration raises issues such as:
- having sufficient access to technical expertise
- ensuring good communication between repository managers and developers
- focussing on real user needs.
None of these are easy issues to address. Two of the speakers came from institutions which are members of the Scottish Digital Library Consortium and they noted the value of libraries ‘clubbing together’ to share available technical expertise and resources.
Information Environment Rapid Innovation Grants
We (Andy, Amber, Balviar, David, James) are happy to announce that we are about to issue a new Grant-Funded Call for rapid innovation projects within the Information Environment on 6 March 2009. You’ll be able to read all the text about what money is available and the conditions for using it in more detail in the Grant but to give an overview of what we are looking for:
- Innovative projects that create a ’something’ related to a user need from a named community. That something could be a new interface, a service that brings together existing services or a tool of some sort;
- The scope is quite simply something that is within the Information Environment (see: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment.aspx for definition). We are not being overly prescriptive;
- The projects should be up to six months in length and between £15,000 and £40,000;
- The documentation for everything in the Call is going to be kept lightweight so we can keep the focus on solutions to user needs rather than filling out forms. We’re just looking for five pages in the bid and the project documentation is going to be kept to blogs or wikis so we know what you’re aiming to do and how you are getting on with achieving it but you don’t spend hours telling us about it;
- The approaches should be agile or open. We’d like to see early engagement with users and for that engagement to be kept up so what is produced responds to their needs and is user-led rather than technology-led.
The drivers for this grant have come from a number of different directions:
- dev8D (http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/) proved to be very successful in getting users and developers together to create innovative solutions to user needs. We felt we should be doing more of this in the Information Environment;
- Whilst we recognise that certain big central services such as the UK federation could and should be provided by JISC, we also recognise that there needs to be funding for smaller, lighter tools, services and interfaces that help users achieve their goals;
- Whilst there is a place for bigger projects that involve senior managers, we feel that there is equally a place for projects where the bulk of the money goes to developers;
- The last few years have seen an increase in the development of lightweight solutions that respond rapidly to user needs across both the academic and commercial sectors.
We’re looking forward to seeing what bids come back. This forms the perfect opportunity for:
- Those who have bid for funding before and would like funding to try out new areas where we may not want to fund via a big project;
- Those new to JISC who would like to dip their toe in the water and try a smaller JISC project before going for something bigger;
- Developers who have good ideas that they might not have quite enough time to fully develop within their normal schedule;
- Technical managers who may want to have funding to ‘try out’ new members for their team on a student placement basis, for example.
The tag for discussion on this rapid innovation Call is jiscri. Please use this if you’re commenting on the Call via Twitter or posting on other blogs and social media about it so we can easily gather all those comments together and learn and respond as we go along. Subscribe to the JISC-ANNOUNCE list at www.jiscmail.ac.uk to get notified about this or other funding opportunities from JISC or go along to http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities.aspx on 6 March to get the call.
Economic case for open access
This morning, JISC released the report by John Houghton and Charles Oppenheim on the economic costs and benefits of three different models of scholarly communication – subscription, ‘gold’ open access and self-archiving with overlay services. The findings suggest that there are both considerable cost savings to be made by the HE sector by moving to open access, and significant benefits to the UK economy to be gained by doing so. Both the potential cost savings and the benefits run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
This is obviously important. It’s also important to stress that the research has been robust (we think it’s the most detailed modelling of scholarly communication), conservative (eg, the figures for cost savings and benefits to the UK economy assume that no subscriptions are cancelled), transparent (assumptions are clearly listed, and there is a simplified online model here where you can enter your own data to see the effect) and balanced (each model runs with a 20% return for those operating it).
[Please note the online model is an exe file, so you need to save it locally and run it as an application. It is does require some time to understand, and the notes are worth reading. Even simplified, the modelling is not simple]
There’s an outline of the report here, with links to the full version. Because it’s a complex piece of work, with potentially large implications, we have resisted the temptation to collapse the findings into a two-page summary at the moment, and instead we hope those interested will take the time at least to read the extended summary.
Information Environment (IE) & Virtual Research Environments (VRE) call for proposals: Briefing Day notes/Q & A
On 15th December a briefing day on the Information Environment and e-Research JISC Circular (12/08) was held. The event was held in order to provide an overview of the circular and to give people the opportunity to ask questions. The circular has £11m of JISC funding against it which is quite substantial. The calls in 12/08 focus on: digital repositories for learning and research, virtual research environments, use of text-mining and automatic meta-data generation and digital preservation. So in short the circular is seeking projects that are mainly about the creation, management and sharing of information that is part of the research and learning process in ways that support researchers, learners, teachers and administrators.
Here are the links to the presentations from the Briefing Day:
Policy and bid submission
Automated Metadata and Text-mining- strand A1
Digital Repositories: Start-up, rapid innovation and enhancement - strands A3- A5
Developing e-infrastructure to support research disciplines and digital preservation exemplars - strands A2 and A6
Virtual Research Environments (VRE) - strands B1-B3
Notes of the discussion and questions and answers from the briefing day:
IE and VRE Circular 12/08 15 December Briefing Day questions and answers
For some notes of the whole event as it went along see Andy Powell’s (Eduserv Foundation) live blog.
A few points of context:
JISC has funded projects and services in all of these areas previously. So what is different this time? I would say there are three general issues that underpin the projects sought in this circular:
* reflecting the maturity of digital repositories and other types of ‘e-infrastructure’ this circular is seeking further and improved alignment of these systems with user requirements. An emphasis in the calls is the need to involve/take into account end-users and a bringing together of these ‘e-infrastructure’ systems with research and learning processes.
* both the IE and the VRE strands of activity are about building on previous investment and lessons - so these are not completely new areas of activity. In the case of repository and digital preservation activity for example we’re seeking more repositories, improved repositories and policies, further integration with other systems and in areas such as digital preservation we’re looking for actual implementation of solutions that have previously been developed. However although this circular is generally about implementing areas where there has already been substantial work the projects are about improvement and so will involve new ideas and development.
* recognition that in many cases cross domain teams and skills are required to create, manage, use and develop digital systems, supporting policies and related practices within institutions.
The decision to publish the IE and VRE call strands together was partly a practical one as both funding areas were due to issue circulars at the same time, but there was more to this decision than that. Publishing them together was, I think, essential in terms of showing that information systems should not be developed independently of the requirements of the research process. I think if we’d published the calls separately there would’ve been a danger of perpetuating this often unhelpful division. In particular the projects sought under A2, Developing e-infrastructure to support research disciplines bridge both areas and seek to bring the research process and scholarly communications requirements together with underlying information systems. This particular strand in the IE calls also represents the fact that developing the Information Environment (or e-infrastructure) is not just about managing and disseminating information it is about supporting and improving research (and of course learning and teaching, although the projects called for under A2 focus on research). I think the connections that are emerging between both the IE and VRE programme areas are a good thing and are inevitable to progress.
The Information Environment (and Virtual Research Environment) Call for Proposals November 2008
The JISC is calling for proposals relating to the ‘Information Environment’ and ‘Virtual Research Environments’. This blog post relates only to those elements of the Call relating to the Information Environment, that is Strands A1-A6:
- Automated metadata generation & text mining (JISC contact: Balviar Notay b.notay@jisc.ac.uk or Amber Thomas amber.thomas@jisc.ac.uk)
- Developing e-infrastructure to support research disciplines (JISC contact: Neil Grindley n.grindley@jisc.ac.uk)
- Repositories: start-up (JISC contact: Andy McGregor a.mcgregor@jisc.ac.uk)
- Repositories: rapid innovation (JISC contact: Andy McGregor a.mcgregor@jisc.ac.uk)
- Repositories: enhancement (JISC contact: Neil Jacobs n.jacobs@jisc.ac.uk or Andy McGregor a.mcgregor@jisc.ac.uk)
- Preservation exemplars (JISC contact: Neil Grindley n.grindley@jisc.ac.uk)
There is also an accompanying briefing document which describes important background information, and outlines some requirements that are being placed on repositories that are involved in bids under these headings. The Call itself spells out the aims and intended scope of projects under these headings, so I won’t repeat it all here.
There will be a Briefing Day on 15th December 2008.
The purpose of this blog post is to be the anchor for an FAQ relating to Strands A1-A6 of the Call. If you have queries relating to these strands of the Call, you can contact the relevant JISC person as noted above and in the Call document, or you can add a comment to this blog post. Either way, if the query would be relevant to other bidders then our response will be via a further comment added to this blog post. In this way we hope to build up an FAQ that all potential bidders can access easily and quickly. We’d also welcome comments (or emails) on the use of the blog for this purpose.
Institutional and Subject Repositories
This question comes up reasonably often: what is / should be the relation between institutional and subject OA repositories? There are some surprisingly strong views on this question. A JISC report just completed takes a very pragmatic line, simply asking where are the areas of common interest and where can the two types of repository help each other? The SIRIS report identifies a range of ‘drivers’ and ‘enablers’ that could form a shared agenda for collaborative work between institutional and subject repositories. Being a JISC report, the focus is on the UK, but it’s unlikely the issues are very different elsewhere.
Is consistent metadata worthwhile?
At one end of the spectrum there are standards such as SWAP (Scholarly Works -DC- Application Profile) and CERIF. At the other end of the spectrum we have unstructured tags and full-text indexing. A new JISC report looks at this question from the point of view of resource discovery (there are many others, of course). The executive summary notes that, in order to express consistent collection policies, repositories need to have those policies clear, and that human-crafted, structured metadata is only worthwhile in specific, fairly well-defined circumstances (eg, non-text items). The case for automatic metadata creation is strong. In many cases, a minimum set of metadata might be enough to start with: title, creator, link to object and rights statement. As I say, there are other demands on metadata than simple resource discovery, but for that, the business case for human-crafted metadata is often weak. This headline is perhaps not news, but the more detailed recommendations on a way forward give us a practical agenda to work with.
Grant Funding Opportunities
An update on funding opportunities …
This month, November 2008, we will be releasing a Call for projects for grant funding. Outline details are on the Grant Funding Roadmap. UK FE/HE institutions are eligible to bid, with some types of projects restricted to HEFCE- and HEFCW- funded institutions, due to funding streams.
We’re finalising the Call at the moment, but you won’t go far wrong if you start thinking about what you want to do in:
- implementing automated metadata and textmining
- starting up repositories for research data, research papers, learning materials
- networking and enhancing repositories
- preservation in relation to repositories
- short technical projects to improve repository services
- connections between services to support particular disciplines
Bidders will have until January to prepare proposals, and succesful projects will be expected to start by 1st April 2009.
For those of you most interested in supporting research, please note there will also be a Call for projects related to Virtual Research Environments.
If learning and teaching resources are of particular interest, in December there will also be a Call for the forthcoming HEA/JISC Open Educational Content programme.
Date for your diary: Monday 15th December will be a Briefing Day for anyone who would like to come and hear about the funding opportunities related to the Information Environment and Virtual Research Environment Calls. It will be in Central London, probably 10-4. Details will be released soon.
If you’re not based in UK FE/HE, you may be interested in the Funding Roadmap for Invitations to Tender. These are open to anyone, so if you think you have expertise relevant to the sort of issues reported on this blog, then tenders are very welcome.
We will announce the Call on this blog as soon as it is released.