UKOLN is supported by:

Future-proofing the Technology – Addressing the Challenge

Dr Liz Lyon, UKOLN, University of Bath, UK

Collaboration for Sustainability Conference

Bath, October 2004.

www.bath.ac.uk

a centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

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Overview

1. Exploring the Global Knowledge Space

2. Interoperability, infrastructure & standards

3. Digital preservation & digital curation

4. Supporting the community

5. Closing remarks

                                                             

1. Exploring the Global Knowledge Space

                                                             

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Lindisfarne Gospels

                                                             

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2. Interoperability, infrastructure & standards

                                                             

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The Life Cycle Approach

Creation

Management

Collection development

Access

Repackaging

                                                             

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Towards a common infrastructure?

• e-Learning Framework– Technical Framework to support E-Learning

http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/frameworks/index.html

• JISC Information Environment– Technical architecture based on open standards (Web Services,

OAI-PMH, Z39.50, RSS…..) http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/jisc-ie/arch/

• Virtual Research Environment– Framework options e.g. CHEF, Chandler, SAKAI, ??

• Common Information Environment– A cross-sectoral vision– Demonstrators– Ariadne article http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue39/miller/

                                                             

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The E-Learning Framework (ELF)

                                                             

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JISC Information Environment architecture

                                                             

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Common Information Environment

                                                             

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Standards, standards, standards • Z39.50• SRW• OAI• RSS• DC• METS• MPEG7• MPEG DIDL• UDDI• WSDL• SOAP• ….

• JPEG• GIF• UK LOM Core• WSRP• URI• DOI• OWL• HTTP• VRML• SMIL• XHTML• RDF• …..

                                                             

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Why advocate a standards culture?

• Open standards• Maximise access

– Platforms and delivery channels– Widest range of users

• Avoid proprietary lock-in– Vendor independent

• Integrate with other initiatives– eLearning e.g. Curriculum Online

• Economic benefits– Delivering value-for-money– Return-on-investment

• Ensure long-term availability of digital assets– Digital preservation and curation

                                                             

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A few words about metadata• Resources

– Digital– Physical– Item-level– Collection-level

• Services– Human-mediated– m2m– Common– Domain-specific

• Functions– Discovery– Management– Preservation & curation

• Metadata schema– e.g. Dublin Core, UK

LOM Core, METS

• Application profiles• Schema registries

– Publication– Mapping

                                                             

3. Digital preservation & digital curation

                                                             

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Why advocate a digital preservation / curation policy?• Long-term access to digital assets• Preservation approaches

– Emulation, migration– LOCKSS– Universal Virtual Computer

• OAIS reference model• Preservation metadata• Provenance• Persistent identifiers

                                                             

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Digital Curation Centre http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

• Providing a range of services

• Help-desk

• Curation manual

• Professional training materials

• Research & development agendas

• Outreach & Community Support

                                                             

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4. Supporting the community

                                                             

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Technical Standards & Guidelines

• Document origins and influence– JISC Information Environment architecture– e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF)

• Life-cycle approach– Creation, management, collection development, access,

repackaging

• Vocabulary– “must”, “should”, “may”

• Revisions– New standards– New guidelines on implementation– Latest version February 2003

• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/nof/support/

                                                             

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Reporting & Compliance

• Working in partnership with BECTa• Compliance monitoring service• Quarterly reporting process

– Validation against published standards e.g. accessibility, (X)HTML conformance

– Difficult to assess all aspects– Valid reasons e.g. immature standards, lack of tools,

cost of implementation – Document with migration strategy

• Project sign-off– Pragmatic advice & recommendations

• Estimated >85% compliance

                                                             

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5. Closing remarks

                                                             

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Observations

• Evolving technical landscape• Big issues

– Semantic interoperability– Persistent identifiers

• Awareness of new developments– e.g. NISO VIEWS Initiative

• Embedding standards (and skills)• Integrating within the workflow

Interoperability and innovation: a delicate balance

                                                             

Thank you.