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UKOLN is supported by:
Digital Libraries and the business process: reflections on a theme
Dr Liz Lyon, DirectorUKOLN, University of Bath, UK
BL/JISC/UKOLN Workshop, British Library
March 2006.
www.bath.ac.uk
a centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons LicenceAttribution-ShareAlike 2.0
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 2
Overview
1. Mapping the business process: the intricate mix of humans and machines
2. Some thoughts about workflow
3. Social networks and service development
4. Summary: take home message
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 3
What do we mean by “business process”???
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 4
“A business process is a collection of related structural activities that produce something of value to the organization, its stake holders or its customers. It is, for example, the process through which an organization realizes its services to its customers”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 5
“The linkage of business process with value generation leads some practitioners to view business processes as the workflows which realize an organization's use cases”.
…..Workflows???
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 6
“Workflow at its simplest is the movement of documents and/or tasks through a work process.
More specifically, workflow is the operational aspect of a work procedure: how tasks are structured, who performs them, what their relative order is, how they are synchronized, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 7
“Distinction can be made between "scientific" and "business" workflow paradigms.
While the former is mostly concerned with throughput of data through various algorithms, applications and services, ….the latter concentrates on scheduling task executions, including dependencies which are not necessarily data-driven and may include human agents”.
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 8
eBusiness eScienceClosed + secure systems Extremely open (data)
Resources are finite + known
Describe + discover resources: rich
semantics + metadata standards
High levels of trust
3rd party verification
Mission critical + liability
Peer review
3rd party repetition +
re-enactment
Static (mission critical) Dynamic, agile, iterative, flexible, rapid modificat’n
Small data volumes
Simple structures
Large data volumes
Highly complex
Transaction-centric Not transaction-centric?
Customers + managers Researchers are users and managers
Comparing workflow
Tom Oinn 2003http://twiki.mygrid.org.uk/
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 9
eBusiness eScience eLibrariesClosed + secure systems Extremely open (data) Mixed model
OA+licensed content
Resources are finite + known
Describe + discover resources: rich
semantics + metadata standards
Describe + discover: “core” metadata schema, high-level vocabularies, KOS
Community tagging
High levels of trust
3rd party verification
Mission critical + liability
Peer review
3rd party repetition +
re-enactment
Provenance, trusted digital repositories,
trusted (reliable) services
Static (mission critical) Dynamic, agile, iterative, flexible, rapid modificat’n
Mixed model but trend to be more agile
Small data volumes
Simple structures
Large data volumes
Highly complex
Mixed model: distributed, federated, centralised
Transaction-centric Not transaction-centric? Mixed model: loans vs preservation
Customers + managers Researchers are users and managers
Consumers and producers?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 10
OK - so in the context of our institutions ……
(and digital libraries)…..
what exactly do we mean by “business process” and “workflow” ???
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 11
(Very simple) e-Research Cycle
Formulate hypothesis / ideas, test, experiment, observe: data creation,
collection & capture
Adding value: Data linking, annotation,
visualisation, simulation
(New) knowledge extraction: data mining, modelling, analysis, synthesis
e-Infrastructure
Open access
Collaboration
Scholarly communications: data disclosure, publication, citation, discovery, re-use
Data management storage & validation: description, deposit,
self-archiving, preservation,
certification
Data processing
Data processingData processing
Data processing
Data processing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons LicenseAttribution-ShareAlike 2.0
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 12
Gathering information about (e-)research
• Project StORe: Source-to-Output Repositories (Edinburgh) – primary data : research publications– Survey questionnaire
• RepoMMan: Repository Metadata and Management (Hull)– Survey questionnaire and interviews– Activity diagram
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 13
JISC Digital Repository Programme DigiRep wiki
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/JISC_Digital_Repository_Wiki
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 14
Data capture
• R4L Repository for the Laboratory Project (JISC-funded) automated data capture from instrumentation, deposit of results (chemistry) at Univ. Southampton
• SMART TEA electronic Laboratory notebook + annotations
• R4L deposit scenario
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 15
User scenario (…part of….)1. Produce strategy for synthesis (=idea)2. Submit plan to SmartTea system (incl. identifiers)3. Retrieve and follow instructions (sub-workflow?)4. Experimental synthesis metadata automatically recorded on
instruments (Smart Lab)5. Create record for synthesised sample (+ proposed chemical
identifier) in R4L laboratory data management system6. Run spectral analyses on sample capturing further analysis
metadata (incl. time-stamp, analysis software version, researcher details etc.)
7. Save spectrum in native and common formats8. Invoke R4L data capture service and deposit files +
metadata in laboratory repository….
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 16
Services for simple & rapid deposit Data manipulation toolbox Associated Metadata
Value added
Format conversion
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 17
Crystallography workflowRAW DATA DERIVED DATA RESULTS DATA
• Initialisation: mount new sample set up data collection• Collection: collect data• Processing: process and correct images• Solution: solve structures• Refinement: refine structure• CIF: produce CIF (Crystallographic Information File)• Validation: chemical & crystallographic checks• Report: generate Crystal Structure Report
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 18
A data repository entry ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 19
Access to the underlying data
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 20
Laboratory Repositories R4L
Slide: Simon Coles,
Univ. Southampton
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 21
eBank UK Project• Aggregator service harvests metadata from institutional repository
(e-crystals archive)• eBank service embedded in PSIgate portal for 3rd party search• Service linking from data to derived research publication• Embedding eBank service in learning workflows
UKOLN (lead), University of Southampton, University of Manchester
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk/
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 22
But….
….how should we be “formalising” workflows?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 23
Workflow systems & standards
• YAWL• METEOR-S• BPEL• OpenWFE• RADRunner• BPSS (ebXML)• PSL• Geo-Opera• JDF• XLANG
• Taverna• Kepler• Pegasus• Triana• SPA• ICENI• BioOpera• Wildfire• BPML• WS-CDL
Is “workflow standard” an oxymoron?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 24
Kepler Project
http://kepler-project.org/Wiki.jsp?page=KeplerProject
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 25
http://taverna.sourceforge.net/
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 26
Slide: Carole Goble
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 27
DL workflows : a complex picture• Workflows for data capture, deposit, preservation,
citation, discovery, mining &&….• Multiple workflows interacting together• Workflows may call on each other, in a defined order• Multiple workflows may use “common” services e.g.
Assign (identifier)• Require sequential or parallel execution, have
dependencies, be time-limited, repetitive• Have an owner (control)• Include essential human interventions• ? ? ?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 28
Workflow…the answers to Who? What? When? in a business
process.
A workflow is only as good as the business process beneath it.
Margie Virdell, IBM developerWorks
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 29
Some observations…. 1. We don’t know enough about institutional business process:
– Learning & teaching, research, admin, enterprise
2. How to analyse, express and model processes 3. What types of models?
– At what levels of granularity: strategic (for a manager) vs detailed mathematical specifications (for a developer)
4. Which workflow tools & standards should we use?5. Learn from e-Science projects6. Which processes are best driven by machines and which by
humans?7. How do human-directed processes interact with machine-
driven ones?8. What are the digital library “touch points” in these
processes?
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 30
Service-oriented architectures for Digital Libraries
• Produce process models (DLF?)• Experience of VRE projects• Integrative Biology user scenarios• Service typology (e-Framework?)• Identify services: service definitions• Service interactions: service patterns• Orchestration of Web services • Choreography of Web services• Workflow interoperability….
(another oxymoron?)
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 31
“Orchestrating the knitting”
“Integration trumps re-invention”
“We work in a services ecosystem”
“new social models for DLs”
““Polygamous recombination”Polygamous recombination”
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 32
Discovering data:
Coles, S.J., Day, N.E., Murray-Rust, P., Rzepa, H.S., Zhang, Y., Org. Biomol. Chem., 2005, (10),1832-1834. DOI: 10.1039/b502828k
• Domain identifier: International Chemical Identifier (INChI) code• Google molecule using INChISlide from Simon Coles
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 33
Avian flu outbreaks mashup - Nature January 2006
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 34
New prototype services
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 35
British Library / JISC / UKOLN Workshop 36
Take home messages• Need to understand more about institutional business
process: cultural heritage, learning & teaching, research, admin, enterprise…
• Assessment of the value of workflow studies• Evaluation of workflow systems, tools & standards • How best to analyse, express and model processes
– Types of models– At what levels of granularity
• Interactions between human-directed processes & machine-driven ones: implications for services
• Social development of Digital Library services: creation, interaction, recombination and integration
….an intricate mix of humans & machines
Thank you.
More information: UKOLN http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN receives core funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council
(MLA) and is based at the University of Bath, UK.