Using an Application Profile Based Service Registry

Ann AppsMimas,

The University of Manchester, UK

2007-08-29 DC2007 2

Outline

• Purpose and use of JISC Information Environment Service Registry (IESR)

• IESR domain model• IESR Application Profile• Benefits of Application Profile in practice• IESR future

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What is IESR?

• Aim: assist other applications to discover and use appropriate materials

• JISC Information Environment– Collections of resources for researchers,

learners, teachers in UK

• Middleware Registry of:– Collections of resources – Services that provide access

• Funded by JISC: Mimas, UKOLN

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Service Registry Use

Registry

Client / PortalCollection / Service

Register / ContributeDiscover

Invoke

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IESR Use Cases

• Ideas about possible uses• Dynamic• Harvest into local registry

– Effectively dynamic

• Static by portal application builder• By a person• By a service application• Contribute by Editor or Harvest

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Metasearch Portal Scenario

• Physicist, Mary: literature survey about Higgs-Boson particle

• Portal discovers bibliographic collections about particle physics with Z39.50– Vocabulary service needed

• Portal provides to Mary result of Z39.50 cross-search using ‘Higgs-Boson’ in ‘title’

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Benefits of Dynamic Use

• Portal– Amalgamated set of resources

• IESR provides:– Discover: resource collections– Locate: access details– Invoke: interface connection details

• Portal builder doesn’t need to know about all resources

• Users discover collections unaware of

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IESR Use by a Person

• Application developer looking for suitable Web Services to plug in

• Materials science lecturer: resources to recommend to students

• Aeronautical engineer: find RSS feeds for personal portal

• Funding Body: collection management tool

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IESR Domain Model

Collection

Service Agentadministrator

ownerhasService

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IESR Entities

• Collection: – Aggregation of resources

• Service: – System that provides one or more functions

• Informational service: – Provides access to a collection

• Transactional service: Other functionality

• Agent:– Collection owner / Service administrator

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IESR Application Profile

• Documents IESR Metadata– Set of properties for each entity

• Based on CEN Guidelines– Semantics– Occurrence

• Additional Attributes– Searchable– General / Specific Attributes– Extended to capture a description set

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IESR Metadata Properties

• Collection Metadata based on DCCAP(based on RSLP Collection Description)

– Plus some specific IESR properties

• Service Metadata bespoke– DC properties where possible– Connection details – interface property –

uses appropriate standard

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Example Imported Property

Name: titleTerm URI: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/titleLabel: TitleDefined By: http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#title

Source Def: A name given to the resourceIESR Def: The name of the collectionCondition: This is the single main title of the

collection and must be presentDataType: <string>Occurrence: Min: 1; Max: 1Searchable: 4, 1097; title

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Another Imported Property

Name: typeTerm URI: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/typeLabel: Access MethodDefined By: http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#type

Source Def: The nature or genre of the resourceIESR Def: Technical type of interface to serviceEnc Scheme: http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#AccMthdListDataType: <string>Occurrence: Min: 1; Max: 1Searchable: 1148; accessmthd

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Example IESR Property

Name: usesControlledListTerm URI:

http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#usesControlledListLabel: Uses Controlled ListDefined By:

http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#usesControlledListSource Def: A classification scheme used by collectionEnc Scheme: http://iesr.ac.uk/terms/#CtrldVocabsListDataType: <string>Occurrence: Min: 0; Max: unboundedSearchable: 20, 1040, 1112; classn

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IESR XML Schema

• Data supplied in XML (old DC-in-XML)• Serialisation of Application Profile

– Properties -> XML elements – Vocab Encoding Schemes -> XML Attributes

• Not possible to impose Occurrence– Need extra validation checks

• DC element refinements as comments• Not possible to constrain enc schemes• Reluctant to change to new DC-in-XML

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Application Profile Issues

• Multiple entities: description set• IESR specific terms now have `standard’

URIs, eg itemType– Reluctant to change now schema in use– Document mapping in AP comment

• Balance of correctness and completeness against practical usability– Onerous data contribution

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Application Profile Benefits

• Inform Use Cases– All properties should have a use– Find gaps in properties / vocab terms

• Inform data input– Web form editor– Mappings for harvested data

• Human readable documentation of data specification is significant benefit

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Metadata Schema Use

• OCKHAM Registry (US NSDL)– Outcomes of NSF projects

• CETIS / DEST: eLearning/Admin in Australia

• aDORe Digital Object Repository (LANL)• Australian Partnership for Sustainable

Repositories: collection description service

• Standards development:– DC Collections AP: now conformant– NISO Metasearch Initiative CD Spec

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IESR Future

• Funded until July 2009• More content

– E.g. JISC Collections; England NHS

• Persistence and quality of content• Further application development• Further service registry research and

international collaboration • Demonstrate and encourage viable use

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An Application Profile in Practice

• Central data specification to inform– Development of IESR– Application developers– Promotion of IESR Metadata Schema

• Realise domain model into concrete application

• Formal, but human readable, specification

• Invaluable for communication

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IESR Details

Thank You! Questions?

http://iesr.ac.uk/

ann.apps@manchester.ac.uk