A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Tools for the Trade?Supporting Multidisciplinary Research

Dr Liz Lyon, Director UKOLN

JCIE / JCSR Awayday

12th December, 2002

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Research – so what is new?

• Focus: data intensive• Skills (IT+statistics+domain)• Disciplines e.g. Astro-informatics• Highly distributed• Collaborative• Virtual communities• Knowledge-rich infrastructures• More demanding consumers

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

New resources …….

• Physical and remote– Telescope, scanner, computer cycles

• Informational/bibliographic– Articles, theses, eprints, maps, music scores, scripts,

newspapers, programs

• Primary/original data – Numeric, genomic, 2/3D molecular structures, satellite

images, electron micrographs, wave spectra, CAD, code, compositions, VR

• Human discourse– Chat, discussion fora, email, virtual meetings, minutes,

workshops, annotations, pers. comm.

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

….. used in new ways

• Spatial change– Federation, aggregation, dis-aggregation, replication,

manipulation, linking, annotation, editing/versioning, transformation

• Knowledge extraction– Analysis (textual, musical, statistical, mathematical, visual,

chemical, gene……)– Mining (text, data, structures……)– Modelling (economic, mathematical, biological..)– Presentation (visualisation, rendering….)

• Distributed collaborative discourse– Discuss, criticise, evaluate, support, agree, disagree, reject…

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

We need new tools:

• “Off-the-shelf” • Integrated• Personalised• Usable• Collaborative• Generic• Intelligent• Extensible

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

New challenges (1)

• How can we discover resources across multiple and diverse knowledge environments?

• How can we implement richer content-based query modes?

• How can we automate the metadata creation process further?

• How can we manage the semantic differences between highly specialised domain vocabularies?

• How can we make visualisation tools as easy to use and as pervasive as Google?

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

New challenges (2)

• How can we link original data to derived data and information?

• How can we facilitate knowledge transfer between research and learning & teaching processes?

• How can we manage the complexity of these systems?

• How can we maximise efficiency of these systems?• How can we overcome the socio-economic and

cultural barriers?

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

What are the next steps for JCIE / JCSR?