The project plan is available from the JISC Web site, with further information available from the project Web site. The primary partners in this project are MIMAS, Cranfield University, COUNTER, CrossRef and Oxford University Press - which means that it is well placed to consider the many issues to which the collection, aggregation and use of article level statistics gives rise.

PIRUS2 is not alone in considering these issues and is in contact with the Open Access Statistik and SURFSure projects in Germany and the Netherlands respectively which are also working on collecting article level usage data from repositories. The projects are taking similar technical approaches. One key decision - which is in line with a recommendation of the JISC usage statistics review of 2008 - has been to format log data as OpenURL context objects. One explanation of OpenURL context objects can be found on the SURF Web site. Other standards being used are OAI-PMH and SUSHI for harvesting the usage data.

PIRUS2 continues to the end of 2010.

They have provided the data about each session as a dynamic dataset that will continue to evolve in the lead up to the event. This dataset is available to anyone who is interested from the dev8D website and is provided in three semantic web formats: RDF, n3, and nt . The dataset includes details of session titles, timings, and locations.

The organisers have used this dataset to build a timetable for the event which includes useful links to add events to your calendar. However they have also issued a challenge to people attending the event to design a better way to view or use the data. The best examples will be provided along with the existing timetable.

All sorts of interesting tools were designed at dev8D in 2009. So I am very excited to see the innovative ways that this year’s delegates choose to use this data both before the event and during it.

Congratulations to Chris Gutteridge, Dave Challis (both of ECS at Southampton University) and Mahendra Mahey of UKOLN for their great work on this.

There are still a few places left for dev8D, it should be really useful for all HE developers and for people interested in their work. Registration is free and each day should stand on its own so no need to feel you have to attend the entire event. You can register on the event website.

We’ve brought some supporting information together here on call 12/09 on enhancing library management systems.

Read the call and post a query about specific section(s) using WRITE TO REPLY.

The ‘official’ text of the Call is available on the JISC WEB SITE.

View PRESENTATION (11 minutes) outlining the Call (hosted on Screentoaster).

The following ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ highlight specific parts of the call.

Information specific to this call

Who’s eligible? - paragraphs 5-6
What are the priority areas? – Overview in paragraph 1; detail in paragraphs 24-64
What kind of deliverables are we looking for? - This depends on which area you are addressing. See paragraphs 29, 43, 51 & 62
What user engagement do I need to include in my bid? – see the paragraphs on deliverables above
What are the deadlines for submitting bids and getting feedback? – paragraphs 103 and 115
What are the project timescales? - paragraph 3
Who do I contact for further information? - paragraph 4

Standard bidding information

How do I structure a bid? - paragraph 70
How do I format and submit a bid? - paragraphs 102-113
Is there a checklist for submitting a bid? - paragraph 122
When will I hear about my bid? - paragraph 119
What about staff recruitment? - paragraph 65
What about partnerships and consortia? – paragraphs 6 and 68
How does this relate to other JISC work? - paragraphs 21-22
What other projects and work do we need to be aware of? - paragraphs 11-19 in general and, then for specific areas, paragraphs 30, 44, 53
What about software licences? - paragraphs 77-78
Where can I find out more about fEC and TRAC? – paragraphs 86-91, Appendix C
Do I need to worry about FoI? - paragraphs 92-94
What are the terms and conditions attached to the funding? – paragraphs 95-97
Will I need to attend lots of meetings? – paragraph 71 and note paragraphs 29, 43, 51, 62 for the individual areas
What are the IPR conditions? - paragraphs 77, 78, 98-100

These are just the points we came up with, Twitter or post a comment on this blog if you have other suggestions that we should add here.

Remember to tag any tweets and blogs with jisclms

We have recently received the evaluation report from the programme evaluators Evidence Base.  The report can be found in the Information Environment repository. The report provides a good overview of what was acheived in the programme. However since the report is 98 pages long and few people outside of JISC will be interested in it in its entirety we thought it would be a good idea to summarise the report in a series of posts on this blog.

The posts will appear over the next few weeks and will address the following areas:

1. Repositories
2. Tools and innovations
3. Standards and interoperability
4. Shared infrastructure services
5. Preservation
6. Conclusions and the future

This call will invite proposals for case studies/projects in four different areas:

Use of new library resource discovery interfaces

Case studies of implementing and using one of the ‘newish’ library resource discovery interfaces (such as Primo, VuFind or Summon). Case studies must include an evaluation of the system and usability testing with users.

Enhancing existing Web catalogue interfaces

Projects which enhance existing Web catalogue interfaces through adding user ratings, resource recommendations etc. The best known UK example here is probably HUDDERSFIELD.

Making library resources and services visible beyond library Web environments

Projects which create widgets and/or portlets to provide access to library resources and services from within institutional and/or social Web environments, such as VLEs or Facebook respectively. The LSE LIBRARY is one existing example.

Case studies exploring problem areas with existing library management systems

The ‘problem areas’ with many existing library management systems are well known and include management of electronic information resources and no or little integration with other institutional systems. The purpose of these case studies would be to document specific difficulties encountered in these problem areas by individual libraries and also any ‘work arounds’ which people have found to overcome them.

These case studies will then feed into a series of workshops to explore each of the problem areas. This process is intended to (a) facilitate information sharing on the practical difficulties which libraries are encountering and any work arounds found to help overcome them; (b) inform thinking on libraries’ future systems needs by illustrating and documenting specific problems with current systems.

As you can see, most of this call is focussed on the ‘here and now’ of library management systems rather than the really big question. What sort of systems do library need to compete in the digital environment and where they are going to come from?

There are a few reasons for this ‘here and now’ focus:

Firstly, the funding available (and funding period which applies) means that projects need to be short (six months) and, therefore, not too ambitious.

Secondly, the longer term picture is being addressed elsewhere:

- SCONUL is currently conducting a FEASIBILITY STUDY into UK university libraries sharing systems in the future and this will report in the near future (to HEFCE as this work was funded by HEFCE as part of its shared services initiative). While future decisions and funding in this area are unknown, this study has identified potential for shared systems. This study could, therefore, be significant for the shape of the UK university library systems environment in the future;

- a JISC/RLUK ‘Resource Discovery Task Force’ is reviewing what national resource discovery services are needed for the future. This will report in early 2010;

- the OLE PROJECT in the United States is currently seeking funding to build an entirely new, open source library system based on a technical model which it has drawn up;

- some library systems vendors are also working on new ‘technical architectures’ for library systems.

Thirdly, developing new systems will take considereable time and effort, be that by systems vendors or the open source community. In the meantime, libraries need to make the most of the systems they have.

However, the case studies exploring problem areas are relevant to the SCONUL shared services initiative and it is hoped that they will support that process.

Finally, you may be familiar with the work of the MOSAIC PROJECT which has been working on aggregating ‘activity data’ from library systems to form the basis of resource recommendations (Economics students who borrowed this item also borrowed x, y, z item, for example). This call does not include further work on aggregating such data because such a process requires central co-ordination and management and this does not lend itself to a call for proposals of this kind. However, development of resource recommender systems by individual libraries is in scope under ‘Enhancing existing Web catalogues’ above.

The outline timescales for the call are:

- publish mid-December
- deadline for proposals in early February
- projects start in mid-April
- projects end in mid-October

Please note that these timescales could change.

Because these projects/case studies will be short, project staff must already be in place at the start of the work. Consortial bids are not expected or encouraged due to the short timescales and the nature of the work areas.

When the call is published it will be available from the FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES area of the JISC Web site and advertised on the JISC ANNOUNCE mailing list.

We are not planning to have a ‘town meeting’ for this call. However, we will be making additional information about the call available online, together with ways for people to post queries about specific parts of the call.

The tag to use for online discussion about the call is ‘jisclms’

• Stackoverflow - a question and answer site for programmers
• Dell Ideastorm - a site to submit and discuss ideas about Dell products

There are now a range of fairly easy to use tools that you can use to set up these kind of sites so I thought it might be useful to summarise them on this blog.

Uservoice  - example: JISCpress - there are free and paid versions of this site, the free version is limited in terms of how many people can participate in your forum and in terms of flexibility and downloading of the data stored on the site, but the design is good and it is easy to use.

Slinkset -  example: UK Uni Start-ups - this is a free site and seems to be very flexible. There is no option to download the data from the site.

Stackexchange - the software that powers Stackoverflow - this is free while it is in beta. Pricing details for when the beta phase ends are on the site. The ability to download your content on the site as a database is planned.

Ideascale - example: Open Austin - there are free and paid versions of Ideascale. The free version is unlimited in terms of how many people can participate on the forum but limited in terms of flexibility and data downloading.

I think these sites are really useful for focusing specific discussions around a certain topic or event and also for ongoing idea and suggestion management. I recommend seeding the site with a few ideas or questions as a blank slate is often intimidating for contributors.

Of course, as with all community focused websites, a community won’t spring up on its own, it requires a lot of work from a moderator or moderators to monitor and promote the site to ensure that it is useful and that it does not stagnate.

I have probably missed lots of tools, so if you have any suggestions you would like included please add them in the comments. I would also be interested to hear from people about their experiences of using these sites, what works and what doesn’t.

NG
Hi Paul, thanks for sparing the time out of a very busy schedule … what role do you have in the EIDCSR project?

PT
Thanks Neil … I’m here to help them come up with a draft policy for the management of research data and records. It’s something we’ve had in place at the University of Melbourne since 2005 and we’ve just completed a revision of the policy to hopefully help make it a little more useful for researchers.

NG
Tell us a little bit more about how that policy has been developed at the University of Melbourne and the reactions to it from researchers and data managers.

PT
As I said, we’ve had policy in place since 2005 and early this year we were asked to work out how compliant we were with it, on the basis that if you have a policy and no-one pays any attention to it, its probably not much use keeping it there! Not surprisingly, we found out that most people weren’t compliant and also didn’t really know that the policy was there. We’re hoping that was the reason that they weren’t compliant rather than any sort of animosity against policies in general - but that’s still to be determined.

We reviewed the policy for two reasons: firstly to try and make it of more use to researchers (… there’s limits to that because when you are writing a policy to go across the institution, it has to contain really high level principles about the management of research data. If you get too specific you rule large populations out and then people pay even less attention to it than they did before). Secondly, its to get some attention and a bit of refocus on the data management area. There are a lot of things happening at the university at the moment in terms of the services that the university intends to provide for it’s researchers and some other changes in the Australian environment. We’re hoping to lock the high-level principles away in policy documentation and focus on keeping the guidance, information and support materials up to date and relevant for researchers.

NG
The sustainability of keeping that guidance and information for researchers up to date is a real issue. Capturing their feedback and working it back into future iterations of those materials (and ultimately the policy documentation) is a desirable outcome but also a big challenge isn’t it?

PT
Yes, it is.

NG
How do you think that the policy that you’ve developed in Melbourne transposes to the University of Oxford?

PT
That’s a good question … one of the things that we’ve learnt from the 2005 version of the policy is that its not enough to have the central policy on its own. There needs to be some kind of localisation of the policies and so with this new version of our policy we’ll be asking faculties to come up with their own enhancements so that it makes more sense to their researchers, and then probably get departments to do the same thing. I’d imagine the same sort of system could work at Oxford but it would be a little more complex with the number of people that would need to be involved in coming up with these localised versions of the policy. The hope is that there will be a trickle down effect from the high-level policies which have a practical influence on the way that researchers go about managing data.

In the meetings that I’ve had since I’ve been here, there have been some excellent examples of data managers and data management researchers (I guess you’d call them) who are working closely (one-on-one) with researchers who have come up with some excellent and novel solutions. I think the more that that can happen - a sort of resourcing at the coal face - then the more likelihood there is of high level principles trickling down to meet some of the very local one-on-one researcher-based developments. At that stage, perhaps there would be a general improvement in the management of research data across the institution.

One of the things I’ve heard a lot from people is the need for it to be a federated system. A lot of the departmental research groups have come up with their own systems for managing their own research data. Anything new that is provided centrally from the university has to try and complement those processes rather than take them over. That wouldn’t work well here (in Oxford) and it wouldn’t work in Melbourne. It would tend to antagonise people rather than improve the situation.

NG
Yes … that principle of embedding existing processes and workflows into broader policy initiatives is an important concept for institutions grappling with these kinds of issues at the moment. Thanks very much Paul.

PT
Thanks

University of Melbourne - Policy on the Management of Research Data and Records (2005)
http://www.unimelb.edu.au/records/research.html

Review of Policy on the Management of Research Data and Records (2009)
http://research.unimelb.edu.au/integrity/conduct/data/review

EIDCSR Project (Embedding Institutional Data Curation Services in Research)
http://eidcsr.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

#res3