Output – IESR – OpenSearch Plug-in

Title: IESR OpenSearch Plug-in

Date Released: Unknown

URI for Output: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/opensearch/

Summary of contents:

“The IESR OpenSearch Plug-in allows you to add an IESR search to your browser in order to discover new electronic resources. OpenSearch is a collection of simple formats for the sharing of search results. The plug-in adds a search box to the top right-hand side of your browser.”

Additional information:

Comments:

Output – IESR – HTML Plug-in

Title: IESR Registry HTML Plug-in

Date Released: Unknown

URI for Output: http://iesr.ac.uk/use/htmlplugin/

Summary of contents:

“The IESR Search HTML Plug-in allows you to add an IESR search to your website in order to discover new electronic resources. The plug-in is a simple HTML search box that shows results on the IESR website.”

Additional information:

You need a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS plus the ability to edit webpages. Simply add the following HTML, CSS and Javascript to your webpage to create the search box.

Comments:

Project – Fedorazon

Project Name: Fedorazon

Short Project Name: Fedorazon

Programme Name:  Repositories and Preservation

Strand: Repositories Start-up and Enhancement projects

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/reppres/sue/fedorazon.aspx

Project URI: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Fedorazon

Start Date:  1 October 2007

End Date: 31 March 2008

Governance: JISC IE

Contact Name and Role: David Flanders (Project Manager)

Brief project description:

The Aim of project Fedorazon is to enhance the content of repositories throughout the UK’s HE and FE sector by providing solutions for the scalability of repositories as they grow in size and complexity. It looks to remove the “hardware” barriers involved in launching and maintaining a repository. It will accomplish this initially by enabling the use of Fedora Commons repository software on-top-of Amazon’s virtual servers (EC2 & S3). By pre-configuring these servers, any HE/FE institution can “rent” Amazon server space and launch their own secure Fedora repository without having to pre-configure a local server within their institution. In short, institutions can launch their repository service in the same day they decide to have one, and without hiring a “hardware” expert. Overall, the project will begin to formulate the cost effectiveness for this kind of set-up and recommend best-practice to other repository departments.

Name of Trawler: Mahendra Mahey

Outputs: (just link to individual output postings) as a bulleted list

Project – NAMES

Project Name: Names: Pilot national name and factual authority service

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand: Information Environment

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/reppres/sharedservices/names.aspx

Project URI: http://names.mimas.ac.uk/

Start Date: 1st May 2007

End Date:30th September 2008

Governance: RPAG

Contact Name and Role: Amanda Hill, Project Manager

Brief project description:

“The project is scoping the requirements of UK institutional and subject repositories for a service that will reliably and uniquely identify individuals and institutions.

A prototype service is under development to test the various processes involved. This includes determining the most appropriate data format, setting up a test database, mapping data from different sources, populating the database with records and testing the use of the data.

This will provide important information about the future usefulness of a name authority service for institutional and subject-based repositories, and other applications beyond the repository sector.”

Outputs:

• Prototype name authority service
• Web interface using NAMES api (mentioned in blog post)
  
• Landscape Report
• Usage Scenarios
• Requirements Report
• Data Analysis and FRAD mappings
• Software Requirements Specification
• NAMES blog

Comments:

The prototype service is now available as at 13th Jan 2009, but some development work is still to be done (acc to Names blog last paragraph).

Project – IESR

Project Name: Information Environment Service Registry (IESR)

Programme Name: Information Environment

Strand: Shared Infrastructure Services programme

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/mimas/iesr.aspx

Project URI: http://www.iesr.ac.uk/

Start Date: 1st Jan 2003

End Date: 31st Match 2009

Governance: JISC Integrated Information Environment committee?

Contact Name and Role: Vic Lyte, Project Manager

Brief project description:

“The IESR has been developed to provide a registry of information about electronic resources that are of value to teachers, researchers and learners. The IESR project is part of JISC‘s Shared Services Programme.

The aim is to create a reliable source of information that other applications, such as portals, can freely access through machine-to-machine protocols, in order to help their end users discover resources of assistance to them.

The IESR contains information about the resources themselves, technical details about how to access the resources, and contact details for the resource providers. For resource providers the IESR will hold a master description of their electronic resources, to which other potential users of the resources may be directed.

The registry is held in an XML repository using Cheshire information retrieval software.”

Outputs:

• UDDI Summary Report (PDF: 190 kB), March 2007.
• IESR Evaluation Report (Executive Summary), January 2006.
• Report on UDDI and IESR, August 2005
• Final Evaluation Report, Phase 1, February 2004
• Interim User Requirements Report, September 2003
• Stakeholder Analysis Final Report, March 2003

Output – SOURCE – Screencast and Summary of Bulk Migration Tool

Title: Screencast and Summary of Bulk Migration Tool

Date Released: 31st July 2007

URI for Output: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/life/source/alpha/BulkMigrationTool_AlphaRelease.html and http://www.source.bbk.ac.uk/reports/SummaryToScreencast_BulkMigrationTool_Alpha (PDF document)

Summary of contents: A screencast and summary document that demonstrate the use of the alpha release bulk migration tool to migrate content from one repository (Equella) into two other repositories (two Harvest Road Hive repositories).

Additonal information:

Comments: lack of audio on the screencast limits it’s usefulness.

Output – SOURCE – Screencast for Proof of Concept Demonstrator

Title: Screencast for Proof-of-Concept Demonstrator

Date Released: 6th April 2007

URI for Output: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/life/source/demonstrator/Screecast_ProofOfConceptDemonstrator_SOURCE.html

Summary of contents: Audio and video screencast of the proof of concept SOURCE bulk migration tool. The screencast shows a java swing bulk migration application querying MIT hosted applications of Learning Edge and Intralibrary repositories. The repositories are queried and items found. A learning object is then migrated to a Harvest Road Hive repository using the tool and shown to be deposited.

Additonal information:

Comments:

Project – MetaTools

Project Name: Metatools

Programme Name: Repositories and Preservation Programme

Strand: Tools and Innovation

JISC Project URI: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_rep_pres/tools/metatools.aspx

Project URI: http://www.ahds.ac.uk/about/projects/metatools/

Start Date: 15 March 2007

End Date: 15 September 2008

Governance: Integrated Information Environment Committee (JIIE), Repositories and preservation advisory group

Contact Name and Role: Dr Malcolm Polfreman – (Project Manager)

Brief project description:

To develop a methodology for evaluating metadata creation tools. To Compare the quality of currently available metadata generation tools. To develop, test and disseminate prototype web services that integrate the best metadata generation tools and functionality.

Name of Trawler: Mahendra Mahey

Outputs
Project Outputs are not available as yet (though project was supposed to finish in September).

According to the project plan the outputs will be:

• Develop a methodology for evaluating metadata generation tools
• Compare the quality of currently available metadata generation tools
• Develop, test and disseminate prototype web services that integrate the best metadata generation tools and functionality.

Output – SOURCE – User Case Studies of Bulk-Migration in HE

Title: User Case Studies of Bulk-Migration in HE

Date Released: 25th May 2007

URI for Output: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/life/source/UserCases/player.html

Summary of contents: Slide and audio description of the SOURCE project use cases by David Flanders. Twelve bulk transfer use cases are presented in addition to architecture, object model and GUI overviews. Most use cases describe either full or partial bulk transfer of objects and/or metdata between repositories.  The scenarios are based on the transfer of learning objects but are applicable more widely.

Additonal information: Six R&D case studies and six deposit API use studies are described as part of the same presentation.

Comments: Although the slide and audio description are useful and detailed, the output in the form of a Adobe Flash movie limits it’s usefulness and re-usability. No other form of the use cases is provided via the project website. The notes section of the presentation provides textual description of the use cases but this can’t be copied.

Output – SOURCE – Report on Search Demonstrator: OSID Proof of Concept

Title: Report on Search Demonstrator: OSID Proof of Concept

Date Released: 22nd March 2007

URI for Output: http://www.source.bbk.ac.uk/reports/SearchDemonstrator_OsidProofOfConcept_SOURCE_JISC (PDF file)

Summary of contents: Report describes a basic OSID implementation, focused on searching for assets that match a keyword. Integration was tested with VUE and HarvestRoad Hive Explorer repositories to validate the implementations.

Additonal information: Document describes the proof of concept with use of screen shots and description of the implementation. The output looks to be a potentially useful piece of multiple repository search and download software.

Comments: Document is labelled as draft. Software not available for download. Maybe it isn’t intended to be?