perx and techxtra
TRANSCRIPT
PerX and TechXtra
Roddy MacLeodHeriot Watt [email protected]://www.slideshare.net/libram/perx-and-techxtra/
Discovering eprints: finding needles in the haystack?12th Sept, European Research Institute, Birmingham
Two names
Their roles in making research outputs more easily accessible
PerX – Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch
A project (not a service) http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/perx/ Subject Portals Project
– http://www.portal.ac.uk/spp/
TechXtra – formerly EEVL Xtra A service (not a project) http://www.techxtra.ac.uk
June 2005 - May 2007
JISC Digital Repositories Programme
Repositories Research Team Wiki (DigiRep)
< 1fte Partners
– Heriot-Watt University– Cranfield University– Institution of Civil Engineers/Thomas Telford Ltd– Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources Library (Arizona)– Regional Support Centre East Midlands– Adiuri
Looked at various issues concerning subject-based access to digital repositories
Broad perspective on ‘digital repositories’
Information landscape
We investigated..
The range and availability of digital repository sources Cultural barriers to use of repositories in the subject community The functionality of software tools Advocacy materials to encourage participation of repository
providers Maintenance issues Interactions with infrastructural shared services Enhancing metadata quality Embedding and reuse of resource discovery services Improving search and browse results presentation Service profiling for particular audiences
We produced…
Listing of Engineering Repository Sources Engineering Digital Repositories Landscape Analysis Listing of
Basic Functional Requirements for Cross Search Service
Focus Groups Reports Advocacy Materials Setup & Maintenance Report Shared Service Report OAI-PMH Metadata Augmentation Report Embedding and reuse report
Plus two working demonstratorswww.engineering.ac.uk
Plus two working demonstratorswww.engineering.ac.uk/civil
Administrative interface
What did we find out?
"We feel more strongly than ever that there are significant advantages to a disciplinary approach to electronic services supporting advanced scholarship and higher education" Stephen and Harrison (2002)
What may work for one discipline does not necessarily work well for another discipline.
Need for Subject focused services– Agree 46.8%– Strongly agree 46.8%
What did we find out?
Creating subject perspectives is not always easy.
There are gap areas Subject information environments are
complex Repositories are less important in engineering
than some other subjects The hybrid approach has limitations Maintenance of OAI-PMH and automating
reharvesting, is challenging
What else did we find out?
More content is needed Shared services were mostly at the trial
stage We could embed a cross-search service
in a VLE
Its more difficult than you might think
Problems faced by PerX
Further PerX reading…
Building Bridges with Blocks: Assisting digital library and Virtual Learning Environment integration through reusable middleware. In Proceedings ELPUB 2007.
Digital Repositories: Building an information infrastructure in the UK. Research Information, Oct/Nov 2006.
The PerX Project - not just for engineers. E-MmITS, the electronic newsletter of the Multimedia and Information Technology Group Scotland, Spring/Summer 2006, pp. 11-14.
Overcoming the obstacles of harvesting and searching digital repositories from federated searching toolkits, and embedding them in VLEs. In Proceedings 2nd International Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems
Engineering: the changing information landscape. FreePint (198). PerX: Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch. D-Lib Magazine 12(3). Digital Repositories in UK universities and colleges. Freepint (200).
TechXtra
Cross search 4 million items from:
Aeronautical Research Council Technical Reports (ARC)
arXiv - ePrint Archive Australasian Digital Thesis (ADT) Australian Research Repositories Online to the
World (ARROW) Caltech Earthquake Engineering Research
Laboratory Technical Reports CISTI - Canada Institute for Scientific and
Technical Information CiteSeer - Computer and Information Science
Articles Copac - Library Catalogues CSA Discovery Guides DiVA - Academic Archive On-Line Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) DSpace at MIT Emerald Engineering Euclid Mathematics and Statistics Journals Geotechnical, Rock and Water Resources
Library (GROW)
Higher Education Academy Joint Engineering/Materials Subject Centre Resource Database Inderscience Journals
Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Virtual Library (sample file)
Intute - Science Engineering and Technology Intute: Repository Search IoP Electronic Journals JORUM NASA Technical Reports National Engineering Education Delivery
System (NEEDS) Networked Digital Library of Theses and
Dissertations (NDLTD) OneStep Jobs OneStep Industry News Open Video Project Pearson Education - Books Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM) SearchLT Engineering
TechXtra
I think Tech
Xtra is
quite grea
t
Hi, I love your database/search facility
This is really useful resource!
Extra..... very professional
it is a good site.
I've just explored this in a bit more detail and wanted to congratulate (& thank you) for providing this service.
I like TechXtra very much.
Large STM cross-search services
Google Scholar Live Search Academic - 27 million articles
indexed. Most are STM Scitopia – 3 million from 15 societies WorldWideScience.org – 19 databases Scirus – 100 million plus 29 databases Scitation – 1 million ScienceResearch – ‘millions’ Science.gov – 50 million
Subject communities
iMechanica
TechKnow
Any questions?