IESR: A Registry of Collections and Services Ann Apps MIMAS, The University of Manchester, UK

IESR: A Registry of Collections and Services

Ann AppsMIMAS,

The University of Manchester, UK

2006-09-07 Digital Repositories, e-Research and Portals Workshop

2

Outline

• Purpose of JISC Information Environment Service Registry (IESR)

• IESR content description• IESR services• Using IESR• Future directions of service registries


3

Why IESR?

• JISC Information Environment:– Collections of resources for researchers,

learners, teachers in UK

• Single central registry – m2m access– Improve awareness and access

• Funded by JISC:– MIMAS, UKOLN– Registry developed and hosted by MIMAS


4

IESR Content

• Descriptions of:– Collections of resources– Made available via Informational Services– Agents: Owners / Administrators– Transactional Services

• Contributed by resource providers• QA check by IESR content manager


5

Services and Collections

• Collection: – An aggregation of resources

• Service: – A system that provides one or more

functions

• Informational service: – Provides access to a collection

• Transactional service: – Other functionality


6

IESR Entities

Collection

Service Agentadministers

ownsprovides access


7

IESR Entity Description

• Entities identified with URI• Described by metadata• Metadata defined by Application Profile

– Semantics– Occurrence– Searchable

• Application Profile for human reading– More restrictive than XML schema


8

IESR Collection Metadata

• Based on RSLP Collection Description• Simplification for electronic resources• Consistent with standards development:

– DCMI Collection Description Application Profile

– NISO MI Collection Description Specification


9

Vocabulary Encoding Schemes

• Defined in Application Profile• Single backbone subject scheme

– Dewey Decimal Classification System

• Other common vocabularies supported• iesr:usesControlledList

– IESR defined list (extensible)– Use by:

• Terminology service• Portal item level search


10


11

IESR Service Metadata

• More than RSLP CD ‘locator’• A few IESR properties to support

discovery and registry application• IESR agnostic about protocol• Single access method / protocol:

– SRU, Z39.50, SOAP, OAI-PMH, Web/CGI

• Location URL


12

IESR Service Metadata (continued)

• Prototype service type list– e.g. Alert, Harvest

• Authentication details– Will investigate Shibboleth AAP

• Interface property for some service protocols – Connection details– Uses appropriate schema


13


14

Service Connection Details

• SOAP: Locator: access URL; Interface: WSDL

• Z39.50, SRU: Interface: ZeeRex

• SRW: Interface: ZeeRex; WSDL

• OAI-PMH: Locator: BaseURL

• OpenURL: Locator: BaseURL

• Web CGI: Interface: WSDL (HTTP binding)

• Web page: Locator: URL


15


16

IESR Administrative Metadata

• Included with every entity• IESR includes:

– Creating organisation– Publisher: IESR– Latest modification date– Rights to reuse descriptions


17

IESR Creative Commons Licence

• All IESR records licensed under a Creative Commons licence:– Non-commercial (freely available)– Share-alike (maintain same licence)– Attribution-required (attribute provenance)

• Contributors agree to this licence• http://creativecommons.org


18

IESR Services

• Z39.50 – Search via Bib-1 attributes– Results: text (SUTRS); composite XML

• OAI-PMH for harvesting: entity XML

• OpenURL Link-To Resolver– Implements IESR identifier resolution

• Web Search and Browse• Data Editor for Contributors


19

Future Services

• SRU (Search / Retrieve over HTTP)– NISO Metasearch XML Gateway (MXG)

• Web Services SOAP / SRW• RSS• UDDI view


20

Service Registry Use

Registry

Client / PortalCollection / Service

Register / ContributeDiscover

Invoke


21

Portal in JISC IE

• JISC defines a portal:A network service that brings together content

from diverse distributed resources using technologies such as cross searching, harvesting, and alerting, and collates this into an amalgamated form for presentation to an end user.


22

Using IESR

• Portal– amalgamated set of resources

• IESR provides:– Discovery of resource collections– Up-to-date details of access to collections– Discovery of transactional services

• RSS• OpenURL resolvers

• IESR will develop Use Cases


23

Portal Metasearch Scenario

• Social Scientist: find resources about family health

• Social Science portal discovers collections with e.g. Z39.50 services– Vocabulary service needed

• Portal provides cross-search to end-user using e.g. Z39.50


24

IESR Benefits for Portal

• IESR provides for: – Discover – Locate: access details in retrieved

composite record – Invoke: interface ZeeRex connection details

• Portal builder doesn’t need to know about all resources

• Users discover collections unaware of


25

Harvesting IESR

• OAI-PMH allows replication of IESR• Portal harvests IESR records• Caches locally for use by portal

software, e.g.:– Local service registry– Knowledgebase after conversion to

appropriate format

• Scenario: portal for Open Access material in Institutional Repositories


26

MIMAS Metadatabase Use Scenario

• MIMAS Metadatabase is a catalogue of resources provided by MIMAS

• Metadatabase will– Harvest changed IESR records nightly– Select MIMAS records and transform– Update Metadatabase

• Staff have only one set of descriptions to maintain

• XML descriptions for other uses


27

e-Research Scenario

• Bioinformatics researcher: find research literature about a cattle disease

• Bioinformatics Portal builder discovers bibliographic collections with SOAP services, e.g. Zetoc– Vocabulary service needed

• Portal builder plugs in bibliographic service

• Researcher includes in workflow


28

Use by Portal Builder

• Discover resource and access details by Web interface

• Handcraft resource into metasearch• Possible future Digital Library build

software will automate process• SOAP services need manual

intervention


29

Other Uses

• Portal Links to Web Search – General resource discovery

• Reuse collection description– Initially created by resource provider– Shared by multiple registries and

applications

• RSS Aggregator (news; data alerts)– Personal digital library portal


30

Metadata Schema Use

• OCKHAM (US): Outcomes of NSF projects

• CETIS / DEST: eLearning/Admin in Australia

• aDORe Digital Object Repository (LANL)• Australian Partnership for Sustainable

Repositories: collection description service

• Standards development:– DCMI Collection Description / Agents– NISO Metasearch Initiative


31

Wider Information Environment

• Scope of IESR– JISC, UK, international?– Data ownership and maintenance

• Distributed / federated model– Each node describes own resources

• How to cross search?– Metasearch; UDDI; OAI-PMH harvest

• IESR collaboration with OCKHAM in US– Replication by OAI-PMH; search local


32

UDDI

• Standard for discovery and publicising of services on offer

• Built prototype registry (UKOLN)– jUDDI / MySQL (JDBC)– Not a lot of software available

• Mapping IESR data to UDDI– businessEntity – Agent (administrator)– businessService – conflate Service and

Collection• Loss of rich collection detail?


33

UDDI in IE

• Is there a requirement?• Little evidence in Digital Libraries• Some use in eScience:

– Grid Engineering Taskforce– Grimoires

• Also richer RDF metadata

• IESR UDDI view planned – Interoperate with other registries– But may be ‘lossy’


34

Sharing Descriptions

• Sharing collection descriptions– Created by resource provider– Reuse with possible local augmentation– Needs common / derivable metadata

schema• Standards: NISO Metasearch Initiative / DCMI

Collection Description: provide common core• IESR a practical example application

• Rights issues– Simplified with common CC licence


35

IESR Future

• More and updated content• New IESR services• Maintenance of metadata schema

– Stakeholder requirements:• eResearch• eFramework

– Standards development


36

IESR Future (continued)

• Demonstrating viable IESR use– Use Cases– JISC IE Test Bed Project

• Collaboration with Service Registry development, UK and international– OCKHAM test bed experiment

• Persistence of content


37

IESR Details

Thank You! Questions?

Information: http://iesr.ac.uk/

Application Profile: http://iesr.ac.uk/profile/

XML Schema: http://iesr.ac.uk/schemas/iesr.xsd

Web Search: http://iesr.ac.uk/registry/

Z39.50 service: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/z3950/

OAI-PMH service: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/oaipmh/

IESR Helpline service: [email protected]

[email protected]

Documents

IESR: A Registry of Collections and Services Ann Apps MIMAS, The University of Manchester, UK