News 2006-06
From DigiRepWiki
Overcoming the obstacles of harvesting and searching digital repositories from federated searching toolkits, and embedding them in VLEs
The following paper has been produced by members of the PERX Project:
Chumbe, Santiago and MacLeod, Roddy and Barker, Phil and Moffat, Malcolm and Rist, Roger (2006) 2nd International Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Athens, Greece.
http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00006394/
Abstract
This paper addresses two important needs. The first one is the need to alleviate the resource discovery task across digital repositories by subject, which includes the ability of searching heterogeneous sources that apply to a specific audience (e.g. engineering academics) or purpose (e.g. research, teaching) from one access point. The second need is to provide toolkits for federated searching which are able to be embedded in electronic learning environments used by lecturers, students and researchers. Most of these environments are institutional Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and Portals. Our study will show that the satisfaction of both needs faces important obstacles. On one side, standard exchange formats such as Z39.50 or OAI, developed precisely to facilitate the transfer or sharing of data between computer systems, present obstacles that make the harvesting and searching of data from digital repositories a challenging process. On the other side, VLEs are often restricted in their ability to allow the sharing and re-use of external e-learning sources discovered by federated searching toolkits. A solution for these obstacles, based on a service-oriented architecture approach, is suggested and explored on a pilot system. The aim of our research is the realisation of the concept of flexible federated searching. The intention is that the VLE user should be able to use whatever search tool he/she likes for whatever repositories he/she needs to search, without concern for how the tool and the repositories manage to communicate, or how the tool makes search results available to other VLE components. The pilot system attempts to demonstrate that most of the flexible federated searching concept can be achieved by making proper use of current interoperability standards for digital repositories and e-learning systems.
Julie Allinson 2006-06-09
Linking UK Repositories
The Linking UK Repositories study carried out by Key Perspectives Ltd and the University of Hull, in which organisational, technical and business models for repository services are reviewed, has now reported. The final report and appendix are available from the JISC Digital Repositories Programme page:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_digital_repositories.
Julie Allinson 2006-06-08
Workflow Mapping and Stakeholder Analysis Study
JISC Digital Repositories Programme: Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories Project.
The Rights and Rewards workflow mapping and stakeholder analysis study report is now available via the project website at: http://rightsandrewards.lboro.ac.uk/index.php?section=21
It reports on a study carried out with academics at Loughborough University with regards to the creating and sharing of teaching material. Three types of workflow were investigated, namely, teaching material, research output and commercial workflows. Finally, a stakeholder analysis was performed on the identified actors and stakeholders to distil their requirements for a demonstrator repository of teaching materials.
Julie Allinson 2006-05-06
UKOLN Open Forum features the Digital Repositories Programme
UKOLN will be holding an Open Forum on 14th June 2006. The Open Forum will provide an opportunity for attendees to hear about a range of UKOLN activities. The Open Forum will be held prior to UKOLN's annual Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) 2006.
Further information: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/open-forum/
The Forum will feature a presentation on the Digital Repositories Programme.
Julie Allinson 2006-06-01
'Marketing with metadata' featured in CurrentCities
'Marketing' with Metadata - How Metadata Can Increase Exposure and Visibility of Online Content', a deliverable from the PerX project has been featured in the May 2006 edition of Current Cities, a well-respected annotated bibliography of publications on information technology.
See: http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2006/cc06.17.5.html
The document provides a non-technical introduction to the how and why of exposing metadata. It has received over 4000 hits and has also featured on the JISC web site.
See: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/advocacy/exposingmetadata.htm
Julie Allinson 2006-06-01
