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‘aggregation as a tactic’

to support discovery

Peter BurnhillEDINA national data centre

University of Edinburgh

RDTF Discovery – “a UK metadata ecology”

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‘aggregation as a tactic’

to support discovery for ease [and continuity] of access

Peter BurnhillEDINA national data centre

University of Edinburgh

RDTF Discovery – “a UK metadata ecology”

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Recognise mixed parentage: a collision of language

a ‘re-mix’ of the document tradition & the computation tradition

With emergence of Digital Library & in Information Science …

“considerable simplification, … helpful to think … of two traditions, or mentalities, even cultures, co-exist in area of Information Science

– “Approaches based on a concern with documents, with signifying records: archives, bibliography, documentation, librarianship, records management, and the like … [Content Provider speak]

1. “approaches based on uses of formal techniques, whether mechanical (such as punch cards and data-processing equipment) or mathematical (as in algorithmic procedures).” [Developer speak]

Michael Buckland, Presidential Address, American Society for Information Science,

JASIS’s 50th (1998)http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/asis62.html

“so, please excuse my French”

The term aggregation is used a lot in programming …– “objects … assembled or configured together to create a more complex

object” UML, IBM– “aggregating resources based on … properties. … they are owl:sameAs

and their other properties can be intermixed.”

http://www.w3.org/wiki/RdfSmushing

Here aggregation is taken to mean … • an assembly of data sources

– more than a collection of objects (related or otherwise)

• for machine-as-user, as much as for humans– via an API sans RDF / Linked Data or with RDF / Linked (Open) Data stack

=> de-coupling the metadata layer from the presentation layer?

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My Brief & Perspective …• high level overview

– making strategic points about aggregation as tactic

“The Supply Side, Opportunities to Expand Access and Visibility”– “Art of the Possible: Aggregation Services”

maybe we all slip into being ‘middle folk’: those who deal in middleware

sometimes having the role of creator and supplier of some service; sometimes being the user of what others supply.

I am asked to speak as from a University-based organisation (EDINA) that develops and delivers JISC-sponsored online services

– Service providers add value to data and content

eg Digimap Collections (Single source: OS mapping; SeaZone; Brit Geological Survey)

NewsfilmOnline (various; digitised with JISC £)

UK Access Federation (institutions; authentication)

+ Carmichael Watson; Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches; Statistical Accounts– but also as someone interested in assisting this UK policy framework

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My Brief & Perspective … as aggregator

developing and delivering services for research, learning & teaching

• Aggregators add value to data and content from multiple sources

JISCMediahub - links to collections & hosted content (1m resources)

eg CultureGrid; First World War Poetry; hundreds more collections

GoGeo! - metadata registry for spatially-referenced data

SUNCAT– serials union catalogue:metadata; online & on-shelf

PEPRS - e-journal preservation registry; archiving agencies OpenURL Router - commercial resolvers & institutions; activity OA Repository Junction - enabling deposit into OA repositoriesopendepot.org - using OpenDOAR/ROAR & RoMEO

aggregating – adding value – assisting discoverability – looking to gain leverage from other aggregations

+ repositories for user generated content

eg ShareGeo; DataShare; opendepot.org; JISCMediahub

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Some RDTF-related projects @ EDINA

1. GOgeo Linked Data (GOLD)

2. SUNCAT: Exploring Open [bibliographic] Metadata

1. Sharing OpenURL Activity Data

* monthly usage data: recommender service – data now available!

2. Aggregations of Metadata for Images and Time Based Media, a Scoping study (completed, report available)

3. CHALICE

* publish UK historic placename gazetteer as Linked Data

4. Linked Data Focus* 3 case studies on other EDINA services illustrating how other collections

can benefit from the same techniques.

5. VSM Portal – discovery/access to visual & sound materials

6. etc etc <re-thinking lessons from past projects and activiies>

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back to the brief: 'Aggregation as a tactic' …(a phrase coined to break a log-jam at a meeting)

• to contrast the enthusiasm for the centralisation implied in aggregation …

… with what is clearly the main Internet game:

exploiting that things are now 'remote, digital and published’

• ‘aggregation’ is not a goal, not an end in itself

– aggregation is an intervention to be used for some strategic purpose

… and that strategic purpose is twofold:

* ‘improvement’

* ‘discoverability’

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… is to help ensure researchers, students and their teachers have

ease of accessto online scholarly resources

P.Burnhill, Edinburgh 2009; 2001

licence to use

usability

authorisation

open

restricted

Creative Commons licensing

and the purpose of ‘discoverability’ …

reliabilitywell-seamed

interoperability

functionality

anytime/placeconvenience

Machine as User

“ease” access to content & services

“continuity”

making it easier for humans:

hiding complexity in underlying data

making it easier for machines:

exposing complexity in underlying data

back content preservation

… to help ensure researchers, students and their teachers have

ease [and continuity] of accessto online scholarly resources

“ease” “continuity”

P.Burnhill, Edinburgh 2009; 2001

access to content & services

licence to use

usability

openauthorisation

Creative Commons licensing

Our shared & central task …

make it easier for machines:

expose complexity and relationships in underlying data

usability open

stewardship

orphan content

‘Aggregation as a tactic’

“key concept in RDTF Vision is aggregation, directly or represented through metadata”

• Propose we regard aggregation as intervention to exploit the telematic opportunity for things are 'remote, digital & published’

– In my mind the phrase derives from an IASSIST conference in 1990

* the international data librarian and archivist’s meeting, with the title, 'Numbers, pictures, words and sounds: priorities for the 1990s’. We were exploring what it meant with the Internet if we regarded all as ‘remote and published’.

• the Web in mid-1990s simplified and so improved so much– But unfortunately, even now, much which is online and on the Web is badly or

inadequately published …

– We have to improve, re-interpreting what it means to be ‘well-published’

• The RDTF Vision and the ‘Discovery metadata ecology’ are intended to enable that improvement and enhance ‘discoverability’

• recognising that the public/audience/readership for any given work, service or aggregation is now machine as well as human.

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Time served in the Refactory  …• In earlier ‘web time’ we hade the MODELS ‘user-verbs’:

Discover -> Locate -> Request -> Access (Deliver)

Dempsey, Russell & Murray (1999) http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/dlis/models/publications/utopia/

where Access was the end game for us ‘middle folk’even if the beginning and part of a deeper process for researchers, students …

• Now there is call for more than bilateral negotiated interoperability, where Access is the beginning for developers and for other services

• RDF/Linked Data enables information to be shared in a more Web-friendly way, exposing database structure and content

• RDF/Linked Data enables structure and content of those data sources to be explicit

exposing the complexity and relationship in the underlying data

Hanging the insides on the outside …

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The art treasures are on show inside, but …

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Where does Virtue lie?

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Having focused on making it easy for humans ….• hiding the complexity and relationship in the underlying data

– paying attention to the user interface: HCI & GUI; Usability and Accessibility

… to ensure ‘discoverability’, make it much easier for machines• exposing the complexity and relationship in the underlying data

– having in mind the machine-as-user: API as well as HCI

• Regard aggregation as intervention, with strategic purpose1. to engage in value added improvement

– to the data and their relations

• to enhance the discoverability of that which is ‘aggregated’

– to be a focus of attention

• If it is with RDF, then that’s good don’t fuss that its not– If you have built a RDBMS, then take delight in RDFa schema

Are we building something …

… how do we use the ecology metaphor?

better than surfing the web

… what is the ecology metaphor [what’s the meta-for]?

Thank you

Questions please …

update on services, projects, publications & presentations:

http://edina.ac.uk