What goes around, comes around …
Peter Burnhill
EDINA National Data CentreUniversity of Edinburgh
http://edina.ac.uk/
IASSIST Annual Conference Ann Arbor, 23 -25 May 2006
Overview
• EDINA– Services
• Repositories of digital content– (user) verbs, not (supply-side) nouns
• Experience with repositories of digital content– Personal– General
EDINA
• JISC-designated National Data Centre, 1995/96 -– based at the University of Edinburgh Data Library (1983 -)– focus is on service, with significant r&D: projects into services
• Our mission... to enhance the productivity of research, learning and teaching in
UK higher and further education* If not, don’t do it!
• delivering key datasets via ‘web-rooms’:– Map & Data Place
* geo-spatial data & geo-referenced information– Reading & Reference Room
* Supporting scholarly communication– Sound & Picture Studio
* Download still images; documentary films– Learning & Teaching Centre
• supporting interoperability & shared services– SDSS/Shibboleth; OpenURL Router; geoXwalk, etc
– We do things for JISC
Every day is a school day …
New words, and new ‘old’ words, new composite words:• digital libraries, portals• digital preservation, data curation & digital curation• and now digital repositories & institutional
repositories
• Opportunity to re-think what we do as data folk
• Merit in looking at what we do, using viewpoints outside ourselves
Repositories of digital content
• So what is a digital repository?• Do we already run digital repositories?• Can we move into that space?• What value can we add
– For the client community?– For academic support colleagues?
• Can we say:“Behind every great data service, there is a wonderful
managed repository of digital content?”
• First, some context
• Scottish Education Data Archive, late 1970s – mid 1980s– Data generated from survey by a research centre (CES)– Made available online under ‘privileged access’
• Edinburgh University Data Library, mid-1980s & on– Wider range of data obtained from others, often via others (eg UKDA)– Made available online, sometimes with special software, to UofEd
Attended IASSIST in 1985
• EDINA national data centre, mid-1990s & on– Still wider range of reference and source data, obtained under licence– made available, after value-added ‘curation’, to UK universities/colleges– For JISC: national repositories of digital content: Jorum, GRADE, Prospero
• Digital Curation Centre, 2004 & 2005 – Even wider range of data yet (e-science), but held by others– Strategic role: ‘data curation’ & ‘digital preservation’ (there at the birth)
• Information Services, Univ. of Edinburgh– Re-alignment, Institutional Repositories …– University Collections - digitisation
Experience with repositories of digital content: Personal
• 1970s – mid 1980s– physical sciences and many in life & social sciences generated their own– emergence/growth of data archives & data libraries for social science data
* IASSIST community of information professionals– growth in networked computing, and emergence of desktop
• mid-1980s & on– Internet spurs development of new approaches for data services– global environmental change: data task forces link data factories– libraries get OPACS, access remote A&I databases– IASSIST 1990: ‘numbers, words, pictures & sounds’
* ‘all will be digital & accessed from afar’• mid-1990s & on
– arrival of WWW as successor to Gopher & WAIS, linking users to content– Sciences focus on curation of databases– arrival of digital library movement
* Fusion of computation & document tradition; – digitisation in the Humanities, and digital preservation concerns
• 2000 & on– Big Science discovers ‘sharing’, invests in data curation – Open Access movement; for authors & readers (publishers & libraries)– strategic role to encompass ‘data curation’ & ‘digital preservation’
Experience with repositories of digital content: General
Repositories of digital content
• So what is a digital repository?– (user) verbs, not (supply-side) nouns …
• A repository is a noun that meets a set of (user) verbs, by supporting delivery of [services] for a given/designated client community:
– Put [ingest service]– Keep-safe [storage service]– Get [access service]
• Motivation: for the record? for re-use?
Can we say, “Behind every great service, there is a wonderful managed repository”?
No, not if access service do not have a corresponding ingest service.
3 JISC-funded national digital repositories: Jorum, GRADE & Prospero
• Jorum – Now launched as ‘service-in-development’– For learning & teaching materials– Few examples of Institutional Learning Object Repositories
• Prospero– At the scoping stage (March – July 2006)– For e-Prints available under Open Access– A lot of Institutional Repository activity
• GRADE Geospatial Repository for Academic Deposit & Extraction
– A funded project (February 2004 – July 2006)– For geo-spatial derived data available under Licensed Access
* informal and formal repositories repositories at associate partner sites
Introducing the Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
> Jorum is ….•national repository of learning & teaching materials
• supporting reuse and repurposing
• but not Open Access
• a set of services (put & get) for UK universities & colleges
• jointly run by:
“helping to build a community for sharing”
Jorum into service
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
Jorum Contributor launched November 2005
41 Institutions have signed Contributor Licence
200+ contributor accounts created
581 objects being deposited, 402 now published
165 Institutions have signed User Licence
300+ user accounts created
500 downloads
400 on mailing list
Jorum User launched February 2006
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
JorumContributor
“Putting content in”
JorumUser
“Getting content out”
JorumR&D
Jorum
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
What type of objects does Jorum support?
Single files
Content Packages
Virtual Objects
E.g. text documents, Spreadsheets, PowerPoints, Images, Video, Audio, Flash Animations
Bundling learning resources together with LOM metadata - Content can be moved between programs, facilitating easier delivery, reuse & sharing of materials.
Jorum can catalogue and point to resources stored elsewhere- “Learning Object has Information Objects”
Presentation
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
Jorum Contributor - putting stuff in
Step 1
Contribute
Step 2
Publish
Step 3
Catalogue
Step 4
Review
Upload resource(s) Add basic metadata fields & classification
Attach relevant rights holder information Published & available for download
RDN Cataloguer previews resource and completes full metadata record
Reviewer assesses metadata not content quality
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
Jorum User – getting stuff out (not Open Access)
Users are teachers (tutors & learning technologists), not students
for deployment in VLEs for learners in institutionDirect or re-purposed use of materials
Institutions sign up for User Licence via JISC Collections a site representative and a technical support representative
Users from registered Institutions required to authenticate
log in using Athens username and password
Supports search/browse preview, download, reuse
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
The Jorum Deposit Licence (looked at Creative Commons)
Contributor Institutions sign a Deposit Licence
Contributors grant Users a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use materials for educational (non-commercial) purposes:
Aggregate, annotate, excerpt and modifySearch, retrieve, display and downloadSave, printIncorporate into learning environments & compile into study packsPromotional purposes
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
How do you start to build a community of sharing?
ensure that products from projects do not disappear long term retention of publicly funded outputs
experiment with national repository facilities that promote sharing, reuse and repurposing of content
provide a ‘keep safe’ and showcase for those who wish to share learning and teaching resources
regardless of institution and subject consider subject-presentation & institutional profiling
provide easy to use publishing tools all content is properly tagged with essential metadata
and have adequate rights holder information.
Presentation
An Introduction to Jorum
Introduction
Background
Overview
Contributors
Users
Support
Future work
>
Where do the materials come from?
Centrally funded e-learning projects • JISC& other publically-funded projects
*e.g. X4L Phase 1 and 2, Distributed e Learning projects
• HE Academy CETLs *Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning
UK Further and Higher Education • Individual institutions – universities & colleges • Institutions working as part of a consortium
Working with other organisations/programmes • CETIS, other JISC services e.g. RDN/Intute, Digital Curation Centre• HE Academy Subject Centres
built (with critical mass of content), they will come!
User verbs: adding productivity to their workflow
Discover
Locate
Access
Use
Preserve
Fit for purpose?
PublishCreate
Put
Re-thinking two ‘fuzzy’ verbs
• To deposit– Who is the depositor?– What is their relationship to the object to be deposited?– What are the terms & conditions (licence) for access?
• To share– Formal sharing: published (‘publicated’)
* What does it mean to be ‘well-published’ (not ‘ill-published’)* What is the licence
– Informal sharing: between friends/peers– Illicit sharing: outside terms of licence
Dataset publishing
• Re-introduce the concept of Dataset Publishing (Callahan, Johnson, and Shelley 1996)
– analogous to publishing papers– rewards people for publishing datasets
* e.g. promotion, RAE
– involves establishment of procedures (e.g. standards to use, peer review) & resources to manage procedures
* Should minimise time and effort required
– a dataset description is the equivalent of the bibliographic record
– need tools to assist in creation, maintenance and dissemination of dataset descriptions
• EDINA involved in two related activities– Go-Geo! Portal Phase 4b– GRADE – (Geospatial Repository for Academic
Deposit and Extraction)
Prospero
• Project at the scoping stage– Started in March 2006, will report in July
• Main Phase for project under consideration– From August 2006
• Joint activity by EDINA & SHERPA– SHERPA is co-operative promoting OA & IRs
• Scoping & Preparatory Phase– Have built early repository
* using eprints.org software
Stakeholders for a national Open Access repository facility?
connecting the Reader and the Writer
• Researchers as authors– exposing work of authors to a readership
• Researchers as PIs and grant-holders– to comply with conditions of grants
• Institutions – as asset managers and service providers to their researchers
• Grant-funders, as public purse holders– are they environment or stakeholders?
• Learned societies – how else are subjects represented?
• Publishers – are they environment or stakeholders?
5. publisher
2. depositor
1. object
6. institution
4. author3. repository(Prospero)
Repository: Extended Abstract Model Ib
journal
A national repository facility?
• Many larger research-led universities have Institutional Repositories (IRs)– When will all have an IR?
• Making INROADS– An interim national repository for OA deposits
• UK repository junction?– WAYF?
* Re-direct to web-page of extant IR* Accept deposit from researcher/authors where no extant IR
– Transfer to IRs as and when they come into being
Trusted Repositories of Knowledge
The Maori entrusted their knowledge to people, trained to be the repositories,who could:
1. receive information with the utmost accuracy2. store information with integrity beyond doubt3. retrieve the information without amendment4. apply appropriate judgement
in the use of the information
5. pass on the information appropriately.Whatarangi Winiata, (2002), Repositories of Röpü Tuku Iho: A Contribution to the Survival of Mäori as a People,
Wellington: Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Annual Conference, 17-20 November 2002
Special thanks to Professors Derek Law & Seamus Ross
Contact details
Peter BurnhillDirector, EDINA
[email protected] or better still [email protected]
Tel.: +44 (0)131 650 3302Fax: +44 (0)131 650 3308
EDINA web site: http://edina.ac.uk
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